


All the Wonders that Remain

by breenwolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actorverse, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Sex Dreams, Soulmate-Typical Consent Issues Addressed and Explored as Canon, bottom!Derek, buzzcut!Stiles, complies with many pre-canon deaths, paparazzi-typical stalking behavior, soul bonds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 23:48:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 98,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2087628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breenwolf/pseuds/breenwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has been having dreams about Derek Hale since he was sixteen; the fact that he didn't put two-and-two together before now is actually pretty embarrassing.</p><p>Or: the one where Stiles is an average dude whose soulmate just happens to be movie star Derek Hale, and he only finds out after pictures of Derek's soulmark-- <i>their</i> soulmark-- go viral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I won't bore you guys with all the things I have to say about this monster, but there are a few people I have to thank for helping me make this happen before anything: Lizz, who was the wind beneath my wings when this idea first got off the ground; Izzie, my beta, who is 100% responsible for the fact that this thing even makes sense (and who painstakingly slaughtered so many unnecessary commas-- so, so many commas); Emily and Pyes, who were both there on the nights where I groaned "I can't do this, I can't do this, I really can't fucking do this," and told me I could, in fact, do this. And anyone else who ever sent me reassuring comments and praise and told me to keep pushing through-- this one's for you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't say it enough, but I'll spend a thousand years trying to.
> 
> This is written as a fill for heathyr's prompt which can be found [here](http://heathyr.tumblr.com/post/79624164565)!

      

      

They move together in the bright-white of his dreamscape. The place is familiar and not-familiar, equal part solid and non-corporeal, real and fantasy.

All there is in this place is this: Stiles’s arms curling loosely around Derek’s shoulders; using his forehead to nudge Derek’s face up; pressing their lips together sweetly; whispering Derek’s name and telling him how good he feels, how good he is, how well they fit together as Derek gasps and shakes and sweats against him.

He’s handsome all the time, but he’s prettiest when he’s writhing on Stiles’s dick, breathing hotly against Stiles’s mouth and chasing his lips with needy noises every time Stiles pulls away. His eyelashes are dark smudges against his cheeks, which are flushed and hot under his neatly-trimmed beard. He’s a vision, the brightest and most perfect thing Stiles has ever seen or felt or known. He feels full to the brim with affection for him, heart ready to burst at any minute. There’s nothing to do then but kiss him, so Stiles does.

He kisses him quiet, kisses him softly, kisses him until the silence of the dreamscape shifts to a building roar of white noise and the brightness begins to ebb away around the corners of his vision. He kisses Derek Hale as well as he knows how, until he drifts away from the dream entirely, comes up from it shaking, and surfaces into consciousness with a gasp.

      

      

      

      

The morning after Stiles’s sixteenth birthday, he woke from his first honest-to-god wet dream about Hollywood heartthrob Derek Hale. It was the beginning of a bright and long-lasting obsession-- one he would insist, repeatedly, _does not exist, thanks, now can I get three copies of that Men’s Fitness-- no, man, I didn’t even see him on the cover there, I just care a lot about kale and leg presses, okay?_

And maybe he was a handful of years too late, because Derek Hale hadn't been exactly relevant outside of his devastating good looks and magazine physique since 2008 when _Diamond Interchange III_ came out, but after he had one measly little dream about Derek Hale's jaw muscles flexing and eyelashes fluttering as he sucked down Stiles's cock, he just couldn’t stop.

By the time he was nineteen, Stiles could quote all of the atrocious dialogue from the first two _DI_ movies from memory, had turned down the handful of dates he’d been asked out on, and spent a truly unholy amount of time fantasizing about licking the cleft of Derek Hale's chin.

At twenty, after the fifth installment in the DI franchise came out and had a shocking amount of success (especially considering the fourth one had gone straight to DVD/Blu-ray), Stiles went grocery shopping, had a minor breakdown in the middle of the magazine aisle, and left with no fewer than six magazines featuring spreads or covers or interviews of a glowering Derek Hale.

At twenty-one, he leaned across the bartop and said, "Hey," with a sloppy slur, "can I tell you something sad?" The bartender raised her perfectly-shaped eyebrows at him and waited. "I'm a virgin. I'm a twenty-one-year-old virgin because I'm hung up on a shitty celebrity with nice eyes. I hate myself."

"Oh my god, I don't get paid enough for this," she groaned, dropping her dish rag into the sanitizing bucket with conviction. "Go home, Stiles. Go home and sleep this off.”

"Malia," he said, squinting at her nametag and, judging by the look on her face, totally mispronouncing it. "You know my name. That's so sweet."

"Uh-huh." She laid a receipt out in front of him, forced a pen into his slack fingers. "Sign here.”

"We should go on a date. I would totally go on a date with you-- you're pretty. And kind of mean. I like that, I think."

"You're right," Malia said, and he nearly fell off his seat in surprise. "You _are_ sad."

"Hey!"

While that’s not _how_ they start to date, eventually they do.

They’re not soulmates, which they establish early on (the first time they are topless together), but plenty of people have platonic soulmates and pursue romantic relationships outside of the bond. There's no way of knowing for certain where your own chips fall until you actually meet your soulmate. So they give it their best shot, eyes sliding off each other’s marks, making a point of kissing them when they get the opportunity. The black tri-spiral soulmark beneath Stiles's collarbone never gives any more away than the long silver line running the length of Malia's spine.

And then Malia meets her soulmate one day when she’s getting ice cream in the park. It isn’t platonic, not even a little bit, so she and Stiles call it off.

Leaving Stiles-- now twenty-four and single and working forty hours a week at a call center tech support job-- to spend endless hours following _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ ’s pre-production. 

When Derek Hale gets assaulted in the streets of LA by a gaggle of paparazzi, and the deep-V of his t-shirt gets yanked deeper, the picture of his soulmark goes viral. Stiles finds out through Scott, who texts him at one in the morning.

He says: **!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Stiles texts back: **???**

And gets, less than fifteen seconds later: **Derek hale is TOTALLY your soulmate! WEIRD.**

Stiles's phone makes a wet _plop_ sound when it slips out of his fingers and into his tepid, three-day-old mug of coffee.

*

If anyone else had texted him to tell him they'd found his soulmate, Stiles would have brushed it off, but not Scott.

Back in high school, they'd been so in sync with each other that they'd briefly given thought to the possibility of their being soulmates; yeah, sure there was supposed to be an emotional tectonic shift inside of you when you first touched your soulmate, but Scott and Stiles had met early on in their lives-- like, Pangea early for their emotional development-- and they finished each other’s sentences and looked out for one another and were happiest falling asleep in a twin-sized bed together, so it seemed pretty likely that they were meant to be together.

They'd waited until Stiles's dad slipped out for a late night shift, sat facing each other on Stiles's narrow bed, fingers curled into the hems of their shirts, and counted down-- 3, 2, 1--

Stiles's soulmark is a stark black tri-spiral (Wikipedia calls it a triskelion) a few inches above his heart, just under his collar bone. Scott's is a silvery diamond directly over his heart.

So, not soulmates. Something deeper-- brothers.

Presently, Stiles tries to distract himself by filling a baggy full of rice for his phone to soak in and talking to Scott over Skype while clicking through the pictures that came up on Google’s “Derek Hale soulmark” search.

It takes some buildup for him to look straight at the mark. Looking at someone’s mark with their permission is an incredibly intimate thing for most people; not having that permission now makes Stiles’s skin crawl. But his curiosity outweighs whatever moral do-goodisms he’s accidentally picked up in life, so, eventually, he caves.

And Scott’s right-- it _is_ weird. It’s weird seeing his mark on Derek freaking Hale’s chest, just a few inches above his heart, stark black and unmistakably his. And maybe that’s not the PC way of thinking of it-- it’s _their_ mark after all, something they’ve both had their whole lives. And Derek’s nearly thirty, so his claim to the mark probably supercedes Stiles’s, but that doesn’t matter to Stiles. It’s his mark. He would know that three-spiral design, that _triskelion_ , anywhere.

Derek Hale, Stiles realizes with his heart in his throat, is his too.

“This is unreal,” he says for probably the fifth time in as many minutes.

“Are you still having those dreams?” Scott asks.

“ _Unreal,_ ” Stiles repeats.

Stiles knows the point Scott’s going to make, but it’s not one he’s emotionally prepared to acknowledge.

Instead he says, “Lots of people have dreams about celebrities.”

Scott gives him a look. “Not every night for six years.”

“It’s not every night! Most times it’s not even every week.”

“Uh-huh. And the mood swings?”

“Oh my god, shut up, shut up,” Stiles groans, pulling his hand out of the rice bag to bury his face in his fingers. “I can’t handle you rocking the foundation of my life like this right now, dude.”

“I’m surprised Malia didn’t get to you first. She loves teasing you about your Derek Hale thing.”

“It’s not a thing!” Stiles snaps out of habit. Though, clearly, it is a thing. A soulmate thing. A soulmate thing between him and Derek freaking Hale.

Christ.

***

Malia’s frowning over twelve wedding cake samplers that _‘all taste like cardboard, if you ask me,’_ when she catches a glimpse of the TV over their wedding planner’s shoulder and sees the entertainment news covering Derek Hale’s soulmark. She isn't really a fan of his-- only knows who he is because Stiles has a seriously weird thing about his movies-- but it's all over the news lately and, honestly, she wants to see, wants to know what all the fuss is about. 

Before they flash the photos, Liam leans into her side and asks, “Do you think we should ask them to turn it off?” 

She blinks at him. “Why?”

He shrugs, his cheeks going a little bit red, and averts his eyes. “It’s-- Don’t you feel uncomfortable? Seeing his soulmark on the _news_?”

She considers this for all of two seconds before deciding. “No.”

Liam frowns at her, then at the TV, then at the samples in front of them.

Malia says, “I’m curious.”

Which makes a small, sweet smile blossom on Liam’s face, and when he leans in and kisses her, she smiles against his mouth. “I have a confession,” he whispers there, and she leans into it, excited, eyebrows raised. “I saw his this same coverage earlier; his mark is actually pretty cool. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“How many soulmarks have you seen?” Malia asks, smirking.

He shushes her and points at the TV. “No, look, there it is-- isn’t it bizarre?” 

When she looks up, it takes her too long to put together what she’s seeing on the TV screen with the context of what Liam just said. “ _That’s_ Derek Hale’s soulmark?” she asks, breathless.

“Uh, yeah?” Liam scrunches up his face. Malia’s on her feet in seconds, tearing through her purse. “I mean, maybe it’s just a marketing ploy, I hadn’t thought of that.” 

“But that’s Derek Hale.”

“Yeah...?”

“And that’s-- on his chest? Like his collarbone?”

“Yeah, it is. Malia, babe...” His hand brushes her shoulder. “Are you okay?” 

She bats it away and brandishes her phone. “I have to call Stiles.”

***

Stiles sleeps until midday but jerks awake to someone beating on his apartment door, shouting his name. So he stumbles out of bed, stubs his toe on his nightstand and hobbles his way to the front door then opens it without checking to see who’s shouting at him from his doorstep. The only precaution he takes is leaving the chain in place.

Which is probably wise because it’s Malia, and she looks _furious_.

“What the hell,” he grumbles as he undoes the chain despite his better judgment and opens the door the length of his arm to face her.

“You didn’t answer your phone!” she snaps, shoving him with both hands. “You _always_ answer your phone!”

In the ensuing crisis-of-self following the realization that Derek Hale is, evidently, his soulmate, Stiles had completely forgotten about the little baggy of rice that he’d shoved his phone inside. He takes a punch to his arm with dignity, lets her shoulder past him, and follows her into his apartment.

“So,” she says, her anger sloughing off and leaving an unholy smugness. She sits herself on the arm of his couch, crosses her legs, and looks up at him expectantly. “How about that soulmate of yours, huh?”

Stiles blinks at her. Malia was always… direct. Sometimes, with distance, he can forget about that. He sighs. “We’re doing this _now_? I just woke up!”

She gives him a look drier than the Sahara.

He sighs. “Let me get some coffee going.”

“Two shakes of sugar, no cream for me, thanks,” Malia calls after him.

“Sorry, I missed the part where I offered you any,” he hollers back from the kitchen.

Before Liam, Malia took her coffee half-cream, half-sugar, splash of coffee. Her favorite Starbucks order was a vanilla bean frappuccino. She once told him to perform an exorcism on her if ever she willingly drank any cup of coffee that was darker than her skin.

It’s a good thing soulmates have often been documented absorbing one another’s tastes and preferences like this because Stiles doesn’t know any priests around this part of town.

“So, how’s Liam?” he asks when he comes back into the living room, two coffee mugs in hand. He passes Malia the green one he’s spent the better half of the last six months trying not to think of as _hers_.

“Still getting shot at on a daily basis,” she mutters darkly. She blows at the steam coming off her cup. “He turned down two desk jobs last month. I’m going to kill him myself.”

“To be fair, they were jobs his fiancee applied to for him, without his knowing.”

That earns him a glare. “I didn’t come here to talk about _Liam_ ,” she snaps, curling in on herself with a stormy expression.

“Hey, I was just dicking around,” Stiles says, backpedaling fast from snarky to gentle. It’s inelegant, but, whatever, he’s _trying_. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Wanna make fun of me for having wet dreams about Derek Hale for years and never thinking he might be my soulmate?”

She looks at him thoughtfully. “Yeah,” she breathes. A sharp, feral grin spreads across her face. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

***

Scott comes by after his shift at the hospital and joins Stiles and Malia in perusing Derek Hale’s few social networking connections. They spend about twenty minutes tossing around ideas for what the S in @DerekSHale could stand for. It devolves quickly.

“I bet it’s a girl’s name, like Sandy,” Malia says, brandishing her ice cream spoon at Stiles.

“Sally,” Scott says.

“Maybe it stands for ‘Shit, look at how many people think I’m their soulmate,’” Stiles mutters darkly, opening a tweet of Derek’s from over a year ago to find about a hundred “LOOK WE’RE MEANT TO BE” tweets-- complete with photoshopped images of their soulmarks attached.

They _have_ to be photoshopped, Stiles knows, but it’s enough to plant a seed of doubt in his mind, enough to make him uncomfortable with all of this again. He shoves the laptop over to Scott and says, “I can’t look at this anymore. My eyes are going to melt out of my skull.”

Malia sets down her carton of ice cream and leans into his side, curling her fingers over his shoulder. “Hey, come on,” she says. “Your soulmate’s a total babe. Don’t be so sad.”

“Could be platonic.”

Scott levels a dry look on him. “Yeah. All those dreams you had about having sex with him on the kitchen table at your dad’s place, totally sounds like a platonic bond to me.”

Stiles buries his face in his hands and groans. “What am I even supposed to do?” he asks. “It’s not like I can just walk up to him on the street all _‘Hey, I know you have literally thousands of people telling you this but, funny story,_ I’m _your soulmate.’_ ”

“Definitely do that,” Malia says, nodding. “Then flash him your nipples. Give him a show.”

Stiles shoves her, and she scowls and swats his hand away.

“As brilliant as that plan is, I don’t see any way I could get near him. Assuming he’s even stepping foot out of his house right now, which, for the record, _I_ would not be, there’s no way he’s letting strangers walk up to him outta the blue.”

“Why not?” Malia asks. “It’s not like he’s got anything to lose, now. The world’s already seen his mark.”

“Maybe flash him from a distance,” Scott suggests, but his attention’s split; he’s thumbing through his phone’s screens. “Or, if that doesn’t work, I probably have a plan.”

Stiles and Malia turn their bodies towards him in unison. “All ears, buddy,” Stiles says.

“Well, you know Allison, right?”

*

Yes, Stiles knows Allison, but only inasmuch as Scott has talked about her. They’ve never met, technically, though in the brief period where Scott and Allison dated in college, Stiles heard enough about her to _feel_ like he knew her.

What Scott failed to mention, however, was that Allison Argent was, well, Allison _Argent_.

“Holy fuck,” Stiles says.

“Yeah.” Allison says. She’s beautiful and clearly uncomfortable as she scratches the back of her neck.

“Like, everyone in your family is--”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Stiles,” Scott admonishes, pulling Stiles back to stand beside him. “C’mon, dude.”

“And you,” Stiles says, rounding on his best friend with an accusing finger. “You and-- an _Argent_. Like, I knew she was an Argent, but, like, how common is the name Argent, you know-- Ow, ow, owowow.”

Malia releases Stiles’s ear and crosses her arms. “Chill the hell out. You’re making my skin crawl.”

“Sorry,” Stiles grouses, rubbing at his ear. He turns to Allison, repeats himself. “Sorry, I just-- sorry. Lots of things I thought I understood suddenly look a lot less… understood.”

Scott resolutely doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Um,” Allison says. “Do you guys want to see my equipment?”

Stiles nods. “Totally, yes, let’s do that.”

*

Allison is the baby of a legendary family: the Argents. Her father, mother, and aunt are all actors of legendary renown, as was her grandfather before he passed away a few years back. Stiles is most familiar with Kate because of her work in the first _Diamond Interchange_ movie and the rumors surrounding her character being recast by Julia Baccari for the second and third movies.

Several of Stiles’s formative Derek Hale dreams were essentially the sex scene from that first _Diamond Interchange_ movie, with Stiles just cut-and-pasted into Kate’s role. Which is... exactly as embarrassing as it sounds, actually.

Allison, however, didn’t pursue an acting career, despite all the doors opened for her along that path. She went to school for photography, and the room she brings Stiles, Scott, and Malia into is high-ceilinged and lined with cameras and camera accessories.

“Anything in this room is yours, if you want it,” she says.

Malia looks well and truly gobsmacked, jaw hanging open in disbelief. “You are going to regret those words so much.”

“ _Almost_ anything,” Allison amends, eyes sharpening even as the corners of her mouth quirk up.

“I’m still not sure what we’re doing,” Stiles says, walking into the middle of the room and turning about in circle slowly to take it in. That’s-- not exactly true. He’s a smart guy, and he has a pretty good idea of where this is going.

Scott pulls a Canon off its shelf and presses it to Stiles’s chest, claps his shoulder and says, “We’re gonna get you close enough to meet your soulmate, dude. You in?”

Stiles takes the camera, turns it over in his hands, and wonders what it says about him that he’s actually thinking about becoming a paparazzo to get close to his soulmate.

Allison interrupts his thoughts, though. “I don’t spend a lot of time in these circles,” she says, “but I’ve heard a few rumors about the people being contracted to follow Derek Hale.”

“Wait, _present_ tense?” Stiles asks her. “They already got his soulmark in the news; what else is there?”

She shakes her head, gaze snagging on something in the distance for a breath. “I’m not sure, but-- whatever it is-- it’s going to be skeevy. I hear Peter Hale’s the one contracting the jobs out.” She passes Scott a bright white business card with raised, blood red ink. “If I were you, I’d go here first and talk to him.” 

“Peter Hale,” Stiles repeats, dazed. “They’re not related, are they?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s coincidental,” Allison says. “But I hadn’t thought about it until just now.”

Stiles doesn’t think much more about it either. He’s been a fan of Derek for the better part of a decade now, and he’s never heard of a relative named Peter. Certainly not one paying the bills for paparazzi. And besides, even if there were a relation there, why would anybody exploit their own family like that? 

***

The silence of Derek’s loft is shattered by the buzzing of his personal cell phone against the kitchen counter. Everything is still enough that he can hear it from upstairs, where he’s curled on his side reading _The Diving Bell and the Butterfly_ \-- where he’s been for almost four hours straight now.

He rolls himself off the bed and pads barefoot in the dark downstairs, has to pause at the bottom of the staircase to feel for the last step so he doesn’t bust his ass like he did twice last week. His phone keeps buzzing; he doesn’t have a voicemail set up for it. It would go all night if the person on the other end had the patience.

The screen reads LYDIA. He opens it with a sigh.

“The good news is it’s off the internet,” Lydia opens with. “The bad news is, nothing is ever really _off_ the internet.”

Derek doesn’t know what that means.

“So it’s... gone?” he asks. He’s been in bed for half the day, and he’s not sure if he’s ever felt this wrung out before.

“For all intents and purposes it is. I’ve done as much as I can, Derek, and that means no one will find your glamor shot from any major search engine. Be grateful I could make that much happen. Most people couldn’t.”

She pauses and lets it stretch out uncomfortably until Derek breaks. “Thanks,” he says, not sure that he means it though she clearly thinks he should. He can practically hear her preening through the line.

“How are the plans for your security detail going?”

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“Mmm. And has Finstock contacted you about your filming schedule?”

Derek ditched his work phone about twenty-five minutes after the picture was released. “I don’t know.”

“Is Cora bringing you to work tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, for the love of--” Lydia trails off into a frustrated sigh. Then she hangs up on him.

Which leaves Derek standing barefoot in his kitchen feeling unmoored. On one hand, he has about fifty pages left of _Diving Bell_. On the other hand, he’s only four episodes out from the season two finale of _New Girl_ on Netflix.

He’s already in the kitchen, so he thinks _fuck it_ and goes to find his popcorn bowl.

*

Just over ten years ago, Derek was found by his now-manager just south of LA in a mechanic’s garage they both had the misfortune of being in. Marin was leafing through the _Diamond Interchange_ audition scripts while Derek, who was facing a truly egregious case of overcharging, had been about three minutes away from threats of serious bodily harm if his bill didn’t get reevaluated. That was when she intervened.

“I have a business proposition for you,” she’d said.

That’s the short story of how Derek got the role of Nate Diamond all those years ago; it’s also the short story of how he met Boyd.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Boyd says, breaking the silence that settled between them in the car ride over to the lot.

Derek shifts in his seat and tries to put into words _why_ it’s a big deal, why it’s making his skin crawl.

“Do you have premonitions?” Boyd asks, using the catch-all phrase for the various hints and clues that have been documented amongst soulmate pairs. It’s rare for him to ask direct, personal questions like that. It catches Derek off guard.

“Dreams, sometimes,” he admits. They’re vague things, and all he wakes with is the sobering sensation of lips pressed to the back of his neck, but they’re always the same and he knows them for what they are. “Possibly moodswings?”

Boyd nods. “I had dreams about Erica, and I got Cora’s moodswings.”

Derek grimaces and tries not to think too loudly about how awful that would be.

“At least you’re not hearing voices,” Boyd continues. “Those were the worst part.”

“Laura heard Camden’s voice,” Derek says, and remembering still feels like a knife in his gut. As a preteen, Laura had had the misfortune of getting the voices and absolutely nothing else. It was a long, nerve-wracking five years before she met her soulmate. “Scared the living shit out of her.”

The comfortable quiet they normally assume falls between them again, and Boyd hums along with the tune on the radio Derek doesn’t recognize. It’s nice, having Boyd like this. Even if most days Derek would give up everything else about being in Hollywood, he wouldn’t trade what he and Boyd have for anything.

When they get to the lot, Boyd rolls down the window to show his security pass and a horde of paparazzi creeps close from the sidewalk to snap pictures of them in the Range Rover.

“Buzzards,” Boyd scoffs.

*

The mood swings have always been rare, but after the picture of his soulmark goes viral Derek has the vague sense of being caught in the throes of one for days and days on end. He’s not usually an anxious person-- more often than not he resigns himself to whatever trouble has come his way-- but he feels too big for his skin, twitchy and out of his mind with it, his only reprieve being what little sleep he can wrestle out of his nights.

Until one night he dreams.

Everything is white around the edges, softened by natural light, made gentler and sweeter by the fantasy of it all. He has an inexplicable sensation of being both non-corporeal and on his back, knees bent, warm and comfortable like he’s coming slowly out of a deep and satisfying sleep. The phantom weight of another person is settled between his thighs, and he can feel the ghost of someone’s lips brushing at the tender skin along his collarbone, over the mark.

“Shh,” that undefined weight tells him, “I’ve got you, now.”

And that’s all Derek wants, isn’t it? To be _had_.

When he wakes, the anxiety has passed. His mark is warm.

*

Time passes as slowly as it always seems to mid-scandal. Not that Derek knows a lot about scandal, but he remembers it feeling a lot like this when Kate got fired.

That was three films and over five years ago; now they’re working on the sixth installment of the _Diamond Interchange_ franchise, and they’ve had to change the filming schedule around a little to accommodate Derek’s mark being put on display for the whole world; Derek has tried in vain not to feel guilty about it. Finstock’s assistant Jared passes out modified schedules, explains that they’re going to be doing all of the on-site filming last, that they’re gonna do the closed-set stuff first and all the green screening in the middle.

Later, when he’s in the makeup chair, Erica presses at the furrow in his brow hard enough to make him pull away scowling.

“Stop that,” he bites out, pushing her hands away when they reach for him.

“ _You_ stop making me work around your premature wrinkling,” she snaps back, wielding her eyebrow comb at him.

They hit an impasse there, both of them glowering for a few seconds before they each scoff and look away-- Derek to the wall to his left, Erica to the tools laid out on her vanity. He keeps his eyes carefully away from her until he hears the whirring of the trimmer motor, then he lets her move his face however she needs to to clean up his beard.

When she releases him, he waits for it-- for the inevitable moment where she’ll look down at the collar of his shirt, knowing what’s underneath.

It doesn’t come.

“I haven’t seen it,” she says, raising her chin. “I haven’t turned on the computer since it happened; I won’t look at a TV.”

That’s-- Derek doesn’t know what to do with that. He and Erica get along okay, when Boyd’s there to mediate for them, but they’re not close by any means. And Erica likes to go _bare_ , too-- never goes to any lengths to cover up her mark, delights in scandalizing traditionalists who catch sight of it on the tender skin of her inner wrist.

He stares at her for a minute, surprised but silent. Deliberately does not stare at her mark even though he sees the dark smudge of it in his peripheral vision. He just sits, too aware of it, and waits.

“I mean, you don’t show it for a reason, right?” Erica asks, not looking at him as she picks through her collection of combs. “I respect that.”

Derek says, “Thank you.”

Erica points her spoolie at his eyebrows and says, “Don’t thank me yet. I still have to pluck those bad boys.”

*

“You should retire,” Cora says when she comes over for lunch the next weekend. “It’s been almost two weeks, and there are still weirdos creeping around in the bushes along your street.”

“Weirdos would be in those bushes whether I lived here or not,” Derek says.

She scowls at him. “You know what I mean.”

And he does. But Cora’s been telling him to retire since the first _Diamond Interchange_ came out, back when she was fourteen and equal parts mortified and disgusted by all of her friends having posters of her big brother, strangers asking if they could come hang out with her out of the blue, and teachers giving her winks as they gave her back A+ papers.

But the way Derek sees it, he’s settled. He has a life. He has-- Boyd. He has a place he likes living in and people he likes working with, most of the time. _And_ he gets to do his own stunts, provided they aren’t particularly life-threatening. That’s pretty cool.

Cora collapses in the stool across from him at his kitchen’s breakfast bar, crosses her arms, and looks at him expectantly. When he keeps eating his Cheerios in relative silence, she cocks her head and says, “Well?”

He sighs and puts his spoon down in his bowl. “Well, what?”

“Are you going to retire?”

“No.”

“Ugh!” she groans, throwing her arms up and out in clear outrage. “You’re _impossible_. Mom’s worried about you all the time these days, you know. She keeps asking me gross things like how you are and if you need anything. Don’t you ever call her?”

Derek turned his personal cell phone over to Lydia about a week ago; she’s better at telling his friends and loved ones that he doesn’t feel up to talking, anyway. Now, he just shrugs.

“I’m busy,” he says.

Cora snorts and looks pointedly at the mess of protein bar wrappers and water bottles building up around the couch. “Right,” she grits out. “Busy.”

*

When he lets himself think about it-- which isn’t often these days-- it’s always an accident, a moment of vulnerability. It usually happens when he’s curled up in the window seat upstairs, a book spread across his thighs, neglected as he rests his head against the cool glass and lets his eyes slip shut and his thoughts go wandering.

There are billions of people in the world, and one of them is his.To most people, at most times, that’s-- it’s a _duh_. It’s “of course one of them is yours, that’s what a soulmate is, Derek.” But every so often, he gets caught off guard by the sheer impossibility of it. That someone out there carries his mark on their chest, that one day they’ll touch each other and everything that never made sense to the separate halves of them will be new and whole once they have each other.

Which, he knows, is a _highly_ romanticized notion of the soulmate bond. Not even brushing the topics of premature death of a soulmate or the highly-documented topic of soulmates who meet each other after one of them is given a “for life” sentencing, there are a lot of things that can go wrong when meeting your soulmate.

But Derek’s never _really_ understood that in context to himself. He can be as realistic as he wants when discussing the topic, or in the privacy of his own thoughts, but in reality he’s never given honest thought to finding his soulmate in anything less than picturesque circumstances.

Their bond is romantic, he knows, because the dreams are romantic (if you can consider highly erotic to be romantic, anyway) and maybe that’s the worst part. Knowing that someone out there has been predestined to _love_ him is a heady thought. Maybe some people would balk at it-- wonder if predestined love is really _real_ love or if they were just wired that way-- but, for Derek, it’s a comfort. He can trust someone being wired to love him more than the idea of someone falling in love with the celebrity of him, that’s for sure.

He barely registers the clicking of heels up his staircase, but when he does, he turns his head towards it, slow and sleepy.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep at six on a Friday, Derek,” Lydia says, peering down at him from a few feet away.

He frowns at her. “What do you want?”

“You have a fitting tonight,” she reminds him and raises the protective suit bag in her hand for emphasis. “For Braeden’s premiere, remember?”

He’d forgotten; the look on Lydia’s face tells him she realizes as much.

“Lucky for you, I knew you’d be sitting alone in the dark thinking you had no plans,” she says with a sigh, hoisting the bag over the bend of her other arm. “Get up, sweetheart, Cora’s got her car out front.”

*

The dreams have never been--

They’ve always had--

This is something _completely_ different, Derek knows as he’s gasping and reaching out, trying to find something, anything, to ground himself through the pleasure licking its way up his spine. He arches his back and feels his body give into the push-pull drag of something inside of him.

“Oh, god,” he gasps, turning his head to bury his face in the crook of his elbow. “Give it to me,” he begs on the next breath. There’s a quiet sound like a laugh behind him, and then he feels the fingers slip out of him. He moves to shoot a dirty look over his shoulder-- that’s not what he’d wanted-- but there’s a hand at his nape suddenly, holding him fast to the mattress. He has to grit his teeth against the insult that rises up and sits on his tongue. He needs this, and he feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin being denied it.

He opens his mouth to say something scathing, to give into the temptation of it, but before he can get anything out he feels a tentative press against the core of him again-- a thumb this time-- that sinks into him without any resistance. He locks up under it, his entire focus reduced to that single point of contact.

His body has a mind of its own and rolls up and back onto it, challenging the hand at his neck as he picks up a gentle rhythm of fucking himself on that single finger, simultaneously certain that he’s never felt anything more perfect in his entire life and that he’ll die if he doesn’t get more.

“Please,” he snarls, getting his hands under his shoulders and pressing down, rising back, grinding on the knuckle that’s teasing his swollen rim. “I’m gonna fucking-- _please_ , dammit.”

This time when the thumb slips out, it’s replaced immediately by three long, knobby fingers. The sensation is startling and rough and so fucking right that he feels out of his mind, frantic, and his eyes roll back in his head as he comes.

***

Stiles hasn’t had to take a single vacation day in the past three years, so he has two full weeks and some change that he cashes in. Scott calls in a favor at the hospital that he gives exactly zero details on that affords him the same amount of time. Malia asks for the time off, but her boss tells her no. She tells him about it while they’re settling into the single motel room they’ve booked for their stay in LA.

“So, you just… quit?” Stiles asks when she’s finished, gaping at her.

“Uh-huh,” she says simply, stripping the sheets off the bed with a brutal swish of her wrists. 

“That-- that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me,” he says, meaning it.

Which isn’t what he meant to say, honestly, and he has a brief moment of panicking, thinking he’s made it weird, as Malia goes still before straightening up and looking at him.

“You’re welcome.”

Leaving Stiles to collapse on the bed he’s going to share with Scott when he shows up tomorrow and watch her work in a companionable quiet. Eventually he collapses onto his back and loses himself in his thoughts about the ominous water stains on the ceiling. 

“I’m going to go find something to eat,” Malia says after what feels like hours. “You want anything?”

“Thanks, no thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” she says, closing the door behind her.

*

The next day finds them waiting restlessly in the waiting area in front of Peter Hale’s office.

“I’m not saying this is a bad idea,” Stiles says, fidgeting in his seat, “I’m just saying that this is probably going to end in pain and sorrow and probably blood.”

“You should make that the name of your Derek Hale sex tape,” Malia says.

“You know, once upon a time, you were--”

“Do not finish that sentence if you value your balls, Stiles.”

Scott just gives them both a look. Which they both ignore.

“Isn’t Liam worried about you being gone for two weeks?” 

“Liam’s putting a ring on it, not a tracking device,” Malia snaps, waggling her fingers and flashing her engagement ring. “Besides, he’s knee-deep in a murder investigation right now. Me being here keeps us from fighting about it.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “I gotta say, you’re _really_ not selling this soulmate thing.”

“Will you two _stop it_?” Scott interrupts, finally at his wit’s end with them, and steps between them as a human barrier. “We have to work together to sell this or else--”

“Peter’s ready for you,” the red-headed woman sitting behind the desk tells them. “He has a team meeting in fifteen minutes, though, so you’d better be quick about it.”

Stiles’s hands start to shake; Scott claps him on the shoulder. “We can do this,” he says warmly. “You won’t be alone.”

Stiles nods, somehow managing to get one foot in front of the other.

“Come on,” Malia says. “Let’s go make a deal with the devil.”

Stiles elbows her for it, but they share a smile between them, and he thinks, for the first time since walking into this intimidating, concrete building, that they might be able to pull this off.

***

It was an accident-- really.

Peter hadn’t _meant_ to hire someone obsessed with his nephew. He was a man of very, very few principles, but the whole blood-thicker-than-water, family-first spiel? That happened to be one of the few he clung to. Three weeks ago, the thought of siccing one of his contracted teams after Derek would have made him physically ill.

On the other side, with the cash coming in from the photos that are spreading like wildfire across entertainment and national news, Peter has to admit he’s beginning to rethink this particular principle. Had he known that his own flesh and blood’s love life would be such a cash cow, he’d have tailed Derek _himself_ through the Kate debacle and beyond.

Ah, but there’s no use thinking about that now. Not when Peter’s suddenly become the most popular-- and busy-- man in town.

He’s just poured himself two fingers of scotch when the door to his office opens and three young, anxious-looking kids shuffle inside. He lets his eyes roll off them quickly, unimpressed.

“Well, come in,” he says, chin raised. “Sit down.”

They do as he says cautiously, shoulders stiff. The three of them exchange wary looks as they settle into the worn leather of three of the four available chairs in his office. Peter steps forward, tumbler in hand, and looks down at them.

“So you three want a contract, is that right?”

They nod. Peter’s smirk widens. He settles against the edge of his desk-- casual, but still above them.

“Let me guess-- you all thought you’d go to school, get a degree in photojournalism, maybe. Travel across third-world countries, take photos that mattered to people, change the world with just the lens of your camera. But that’s a hard nut to crack, isn’t it? So here you are, washed up idealists and lousy artists, looking for something to do with all the equipment you wasted your money on. Am I close?”

“Yeah,” the boy to the left says as the other boy and the girl seem stunned into silence. Peter has that effect on people; it’s nothing he isn’t used to. “That’s-- that’s exactly it, actually. You’re good at that.”

“This job is about observation,” Peter explains. “And it’s about knowing the worst about people as soon as you see them. It comes with time.”

The same boy speaks up, clearing his throat. “Will you give us the time?”

“I’m considering it.”

“Any way we can convince you to give us a hard yes on that, then?”

Which is a little too cocky for Peter’s taste-- he doesn’t tolerate brats well. He sneers at the one before him now and says, “You’re not exactly selling yourselves to me now.”

The kid goes ramrod straight and shuts up quickly.

“Please,” the boy next to him says, his big brown eyes imploring. 

It’s rare that Peter’s inclined to give into a look like that, but he’s feeling generous today. The money must be going to his head.

“I work in verbal agreements,” he tells them, coming off the desk and moving around it slowly. “And probationary periods. I give you an assignment and a timeframe, you do your best to deliver, and at the end of your time, we’ll look over what you’ve contributed, and I’ll evaluate your contract possibilities. For the time being, I’ll pay you for every photo we end up using, which we will only use if they are related to the story I assign you, and if they’re sent to me immediately after they’re taken. Payout is picture-by-picture, to be determined based on how rare and how interesting the photo is to me. Context is, more or less, unimportant. I can create context, you just give me the photos I need.”

“Sounds easy enough,” the girl says. “What’s the assignment?”

Peter sits down in his chair and holds his head high. This is always the point where he has to be most careful-- the relationship between him and Derek is a surprisingly well-kept secret since most people don’t bother to learn the names of the people who specialize in entertainment news. The last thing he needs is Derek finding out he’s trying to contract people into legally stalking him, though he feels safe in the knowledge that the type of scum interviewing for paparazzi jobs probably won’t get to trade smalltalk with Derek or his social circle anytime soon.

“The same assignment I’m giving all of my new hires,” he says, letting a smirk stretch his face wide. “The world wants to know more about Derek Hale’s soulmark-- and it’s going to be your job to give the public what it wants.”

***

“I swear to God, I’ve never been so scared in my entire life,” Stiles announces when they stumble into their hotel room.

”We did it!” Scott cheers, throwing his arms around Stiles and rocking him back and forward. They stay like that for a long while, clapping each other on the back and nuzzling into each other’s shoulders. When they pull back, Scott says, “But, wow, what a creep.”

“We have to move fast,” Malia reminds them, shrugging out of her jacket. “Our probationary period only lasts two weeks. We have to get at least one money shot between then and now.”

Scott pulls his face out of Stiles’s hair to level her with a look. “As soon as Stiles gets to Derek, we’re done.”

“Yeah, but we only have these bad boys for twelve days.” She holds up the feature phones Peter gave them, rattling them in their baggy. “As soon as they’re deactivated, we’re donezo as far as getting close to Derek goes. And if his handler is really cutting the brakes out of people’s cars--”

“Allegedly,” Scott interjects.

“-- then we need a contingency plan. We need to think fast and smart.”

She has a point, Stiles knows, but now that there’s a countdown this all feels very real and duplicitous. Sure, he’s not above doing a few underhanded things to get his way-- never has been-- but he wonders about Derek and how he must be feeling right now.

Also: Stiles just signed a temporary contract with a dude who may very well be the devil himself _just_ to get access to all of Derek’s confirmed meetings, film dates, and events for the next six days because he wants Derek to know who he is and what they are for each other. 

Because _he_ knows, but Derek doesn’t. Not yet.

And that’s _weird_. Here Stiles is, in some dingy little motel room on the outskirts of LA, getting texted location updates every half-hour, trying to come up with some plan to get Derek to see him, to know him, to recognize him--

“I need a shower,” he says, “we can start thinking however we want after that.”

He feels dirty, like his skin is coated in grime. Maybe that’s just how his conscience feels, but it’s equally likely to be the Orange County air. Plotting can wait until he’s clean.

*

The tenuous outline of Derek’s schedule for the next two weeks includes a radio interview on Sunday, a meeting with his manager on Monday, on-site filming Tuesday through Sunday, and the premiere of _Aurora_ next Friday evening. There are other things here or there, places he’s probably going to be and places he _always_ ends up, but not much else.

Considering he’s in the midst of filming the sixth film in a major franchise, it’s actually a pretty empty schedule. His windows of filming are short, the time he spends with anyone tangentially related to his job infrequent, and the only two places they’ve been told to keep an eye out for him at other than his loft are a diner he frequents and his sister’s apartment complex, which is gated.

“So, basically, I either catch him by chance, on the streets, or bust,” Stiles says glumly.

“Well, yeah,” Malia scoffs, turning the page of _Cosmopolitan_ hard enough the page makes a snapping sound. “He’s all over the gossip rags right now; it shouldn’t surprise you that his team’s cut back on his time in public.”

“If I were him I would never leave my apartment again.” 

“Hey,” Scott says, flopping onto his back on the bed he and Stiles claimed. “Has anyone called Danny yet?”

“No,” Stiles says firmly. “We are not calling Danny about this.”

Scott raises himself up on one elbow to squint at him. “Why not?”

“Because he’ll _laugh_ at me. And he won’t even help after he does.”

Scott rolls his eyes.

“No, you don’t understand, dude,” Stiles insists, scrambling across Malia’s bed to throw himself beside Scott, using his body for emphasis. “Danny’s the only person who’s, like, ever gotten out of Beacon Hills and done something with himself. He _never_ spoke to us in high school unless he was judging us. When we were lab partners he told me not to get in his way and did the work of two people by himself, in half the time, and we _still_ got an A! Danny? Help _us_? He thinks we’re just a bunch of nobodies. No way.”

“It’s worth a shot though, isn’t it?” Scott asks, voice soft. “His soulmate’s some big shot producer or whatever, right?”

“Whoa, he found his soulmate?” Stiles asks. “Since when?”

“According to the internet, yeah,” Malia says, flashing Stiles her phone where she has Wikipedia pulled up. “Name Whittemore sound familiar?”

“Wait, what?” Stiles asks, sitting up straight, giving her all of his attention.

“Whittemore? According to Wikipedia, anyway. Danny’s page doesn’t say much, but his soulmate’s-- holy crap, that’s a lot of text.”

“Whittemore sounds familiar,” Scott hedges, looking at Stiles.

“Not just familiar,” Stiles corrects, suddenly on his feet, thumbing through his phone to get to the internet browser.

Malia gets to what he’s looking for before he does, though, and she sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh-- _oh_.”

“What is it?”

Stiles answers for her enlarging the Wikipedia article with his fingers before turning his screen to show Scott. “Jackson Whittemore is the heir to the Whittemore Entertainment empire.”

“The distribution group _Diamond Interchange_ belongs to,” Malia clarifies, and she and Scott gather around Stiles’s phone, where he’s pulled up the snooty face of their high school friend’s platonic soulmate. “And, more importantly, _Aurora_.”

“Guys,” Scott says, soft but firm, “I think we just figured out how we’re getting into that movie premiere.”

*

Scott has a better relationship with Danny than Stiles ever did, which is probably why Danny answers the phone the third time he calls.

“McCall?” he greets, low and confused, his voice tinny through the phone. Stiles hears it because he basically has his face smushed against Scott’s, their breaths mingling against the phone’s microphone.

“Hi, Danny,” Scott says brightly. “Hey, I’m sorry, I know this is really, really out of the blue, but I need a favor.”

Danny hesitates. “What kind of favor?”

“Nothing weird!” Scott hurries to say. “Just some passes. To a thing.”

“Passes to a thing,” Danny repeats, then sighs. “I’m going to need more than that.”

“Okay, well, there’s a premiere on Friday night for that new Adrian Harris film, right? Me and some friends are trying to get into photojournalism, and we need to score press passes to that. I was hoping you could help.”

“You mean _Aurora_?”

Scott looks to Stiles for confirmation. Stiles nods.

“Yeah,” Scott confirms. “That’s the one.”

Danny heaves a long suffering sigh. “Okay, I might be able to make that happen, but only because I owe you one. I’ll have to give you the press passes myself, though, on short notice like this. We’ll have to meet somewhere. Are you in LA now?”

“Just outside of it, yeah.”

“Alright, give me until Wednesday, and if-- _if_ \-- I can get my hands on some of these passes, we’ll figure out when and where to meet so I can give them to you.”

“Okay. Awesome, cool. Thanks, Danny.”

“You’re welcome, McCall.”

He disconnects the call, and Scott, Stiles, and Malia jump and squeal their way into a celebratory group hug.

*

“You didn’t tell me Stiles would be here,” Danny says on Thursday, when they meet him on the veranda of some mega-swank brunch-only restaurant with no apparent name.

“Dude,” Stiles says, offended.

Danny gestures around his mint mojito to the empty chairs at his table. “Sit down and spill; I’m not buying your photojournalism story for a second.”

“We have facets,” Stiles insists.

Danny regards him coolly over the tops of his designer shades then, without comment, looks away.

Stiles hadn’t remembered Danny being _ice fucking cold_ , but apparently that’s a thing now. His thing. He has a thing, and that thing is being both pretty and kind of mean. It’s kind of devastating, but that’s not surprising. Stiles has always had a type.

“So, tell me what’s going on or no dice.”

Scott looks at Stiles. “It’s really Stiles’s story to tell…”

“I mean, it’s happening to me, yeah,” Stiles agrees quickly, “but I’m totally open to discussing the storytelling rights, if you feel me. I'm thinking this could be more of a biography scenario, instead of a memoir.”

They stare at each other for a beat before a groan from Malia breaks the tension.

“Stiles is trying to unite with his soulmate, dude, stop being a cockblock,” she chastises, eyes on Danny when they finish their dramatic roll.

Danny’s face screws up. “What?” he asks, gesturing in a way that means to encompass all of Hollywood, probably. “ _Here_?”

“Dude, that’s two,” Stiles warns, voice low, ego starting to ache.

“Who is it?”

“That’s kind of personal, don’t you think, a little bit _invasive_ of you to ask--”

“And how do you know who it is if you’re looking for them?”

Stiles stares at him for a beat. Then he raises his eyebrows. Danny looks from him to Scott to Malia, then back to Stiles again. His eyes narrow; Stiles raises his eyebrows higher.

“You’re a smart guy, Danny,” he says. “You can figure it out.”

Danny’s eyes go wide. “No way you’re that lucky,” he says, leaning forward against the table. “I’m calling bullshit. You’re bluffing.”

“Wanna see?” Stiles throws back, rising to the challenge. No one else is looking at them, too caught up in their own rich worlds to bother glancing their way. And Malia and Scott have already seen it anyway, so.

Danny’s brow furrows slightly, like he’s considering it. City people tend to be less shy about marks, but it’s still not every day someone offers to just _expose_ themselves like Stiles is here, so it takes him a while to process it, to make his decision. Besides, Danny’s not _really_ a city boy, is he? 

“Let’s see it, then,” he eventually says, leaning back, straightening his posture, regaining some of that easy nonchalance he’s always had.

Stiles swallows, gathers his wits, and tugs the collar of his shirt down and to the left, exposing the jet black curls of the triskelion to the open air. Once he thinks Danny’s really taken it in he lets go, straightens himself, and keeps his chin held high. He wants to believe that the uncomfortable feeling settling in his chest is because he really didn’t want to stretch his favorite shirt.

“You,” Danny tries, then shakes his head, disbelief clear on his face. “You are one lucky fucker, Stilinski,” he says.

“Can we have those passes?” Scott asks. “Please.”

“Here,” Danny says, tossing them onto the table. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Malia scoops them up and drops them into her purse. They stay for one drink, some quick catching up, and then they go.

None of them makes any promises.

*

The plan, as they lay it out, is carefully cultivated: Malia, the one amongst them who could maybe get away with lingering outside of an apartment complex with a camera, takes Cora’s apartment block as her post; Scott integrates with the other papz outside the filming of _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ ; Stiles takes the diner up the street from Derek’s apartment.

From their triangulated vantage points, the idea is that they’ll manage to get enough candid photos to appease Peter and make it look like they’re actually putting in an effort for their cover until the Friday night of _Aurora_ ’s premiere where, through some unknown happy circumstance, Stiles will finally meet Derek Hale-- his soulmate.

There’s a lot of detail up to that point, down to hourly check-ins and scheduled bathroom breaks. But short of risking giving his ass to security by literally leaping into Derek’s arms through the barrier between press and talent on the red carpet, Stiles is drawing a blank on how he’s supposed to make First Contact here.

“So go to that shitty diner he likes, drink enough coffee to give yourself heart palpitations, and _figure it out,_ ” Malia tells him as they’re getting ready for bed that night. Scott elected earlier to check in with Allison, pick up the last of their gear from her place, and crash there for the night before returning bright and early tomorrow, giving Stiles an entire bed to himself. He’s just getting comfortable when Malia speaks up again.

“Try not to be too creepy while spying. The goal is for him to want to take you to that coffee shop in the future.”

Stiles gives her a dirty look and makes a point of rolling on his bed so his back is turned to her as she crawls into the second double bed the tiny room boasts.

“Don’t be a baby,” she says.

“If you wanted to tell me what to do this much, Malia, you shouldn’t have met your soulmate,” Stiles mutters, resituating the pillow under his head.

He hears her sharp, annoyed exhale, followed almost immediately by a resigned sigh, and then, with a soft _click_ , the room goes dark.

*

In his dreams the world is crisp and white, and everything is warm under the natural light. There’s something innately pleasant about this space, something Stiles can’t put his finger on. Most of the time things seem slightly out of focus, with each movement disjointed from the one before it-- a general lack of coherency. 

This time is different.

His knees are planted to the mattress in the spread of Derek’s legs. In his dream he’s not looking at Derek’s face, but he can see the meat of his upper thigh up to his obliques. He pays special attention to the crease between his hip and thigh, wants to run his tongue along the line and taste the sweat he sees beading there. His hands are on Derek’s knees and he flexes his fingers against the knob of them; the sensation is still dulled, but the picture his mind is painting seems so much sharper than it ever has before. He doesn’t know what Derek’s skin feels like, but he knows, logically, the feeling of skin stretched over bones, so his brain provides that. It’s not real; it’s a poor imitation. But it will do.

His hands drift inwards and upwards, pushing Derek’s legs apart further, and Stiles lays himself out, chest down to the mattress, crawling into the space he’s making for himself. 

He can see Derek’s dick like this-- or the underside of it, anyway-- can see the arc of it as it curves towards his belly, hard and red. And his balls, the thin skin stretched over where they’re pulled up tight to Derek’s body and swollen. There’s the promise of Derek’s asshole, too, just beyond the swell of his ass-- if Stiles could just get him to bend his--

Derek’s hips lift off the bed in a mindless jerk; Stiles’s hands, with minds of their own even in his dreams, have settled against the V of Derek’s groin, his thumbs tucked into the fold, rubbing softly against the hair there, his long fingers otherwise splayed over Derek’s hip bones.

He hears _please, God, please, Stiles,_ and then Derek’s knees are bending and his body is curling inwards and he’s tucking his hands into the tender skin behind his knees, raising himself up and presenting himself.

A surge of _yes_ rockets through Stiles’s consciousness at the sight of Derek, on his back, bending himself in half for Stiles, his cheeks spread and his hole a pretty dark pink, flushed and needy. Stiles can’t turn down the invitation, can’t do anything but crawl forward and open his mouth to press a wet, hot kiss to Derek, to the very core of him.

Derek jolts, his hips pumping against the air, but Stiles’s fingers spasm and press, pinning him to the mattress. Is Derek whining? Stiles wants him to be whining, wants him to be groaning for it the way Stiles is groaning against his asshole because this is what he wants to be doing for the rest of the day, for the rest of the year, for the rest of his life-- eating Derek out with desperate strokes of his tongue, fucking into him and tasting him, devouring him.

He has to pull off with a wet pop, gasp for breath, but he goes back to work immediately after, gets Derek spread and sloppy against his mouth. it’s slow, hard work because Derek is coiled tight, and Stiles has to coax every tremor and give out of him by alternating between sweet kitten licks and hot passes over him with the flat of his tongue. 

Derek’s shaking under his hands and, when Stiles gets bold enough to nip at Derek’s rim and suck, he loses his grip on his knees. Stiles takes a foot to the ribs but he rolls with it, impervious in his dreams, and takes over for him, moving his hands to the underside of Derek’s thighs and pressing them up again.

“Oh, fuck,” Derek gasps. Stiles nudges his balls with his nose and groans, agreeing. 

It’s impossible to tell who’s more lost in it-- Derek, who’s sporting a full-body flush and vibrating against Stiles, pumping his hips against the air now that Stiles isn’t holding him down, seeking friction with the emptiness of the dreamspace between them, or Stiles, whose mouth is surely red and swollen and spit-slick. He's panting against Derek’s ass, licking between heavy breaths and soft curses because he’d rather be out of breath than go another second not tasting Derek.

“Gonna--” Derek’s saying, and when Stiles glances up he has a hand curled around his dick, pumping furiously, body arching off the bed with it, his head thrown back and everything that isn’t Derek is fuzzy and unnecessary, details his brain doesn’t care enough about to imagine. It’s endless blank, white space but it's also Derek’s shameless pleasure, and Stiles wants to taste that too, so he goes when Derek demands him to _come here, come here,_ and kisses the gasp Derek comes with right off of his wet, open mouth.

Derek’s body coils impossibly tighter in orgasm, and he throws his free arm over Stiles’s shoulders, knocks their foreheads together, cries out against Stiles’s tongue then sucks it tentatively, tasting himself. After, he tucks his head into Stiles’s neck and rolls his hips against where Stiles is hard and gasping for it.

He pulls his head away from Derek for a breath so he can press a tender kiss to his temple and holds Derek close until he stops trembling. He holds him close until he surfaces, alone in his bed, sticky with sweat and locked up tight with how much he _needs_.

***

“What’s New Pussycat” starts to play just as Derek’s dipping his head out of the diner, the sound of the bell on the door drowned out by the rain coming down outside.

“Oh, crap,” Kira says, coming to a stop at his side to stare wide-eyed up at the clouds above.

“It’s only three blocks from here,” Derek says. Her eyes brighten immediately, but he points at her firmly before she can speak. “We’re not doing the _Garden State_ thing again.”

In the time since Kira became his publicist, they’ve done ‘the _Garden State_ thing’ at least four times. It’s a battle Derek’s determined not to lose again.

“Oh, come on. It’s _fun_!”

“Walking around LA in a trashbag?”

“Well, I guess in the movie they _were_ at a quarry in New Jersey. ”

He tries to cram as much judgment of Kira’s east coast roots into one scowl as possible; judging by the pout he gets in return, he does pretty well.

“Wanna risk it?” she asks eventually.

He checks his watch. “We have to.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

She manages to squeeze past him and runs out into the rain, fearless. She’s either laughing or sobbing about the way her hair is getting plastered to her face, Derek can’t tell over the roar of the water against the sidewalks and the buildings. LA rain is a rare, rare thing, and Derek glares at it a beat or two longer before pulling his collar up and braving it.

Kira’s several yards ahead of him, caught up in a gaggle of pedestrians who have gathered with soggy, folded-up newspapers and book bags over their heads at a crosswalk, each person more restless than the next. She’s a splash of maroon in the middle of them, shaking her head as a stranger offers her a space under her umbrella.

Derek fixes his eyes on her and resolutely doesn’t make eye contact, keeps his collar up and his head ducked, trying desperately not to look like somebody whose face has been splashed all over the tabloids recently.

He’s a few paces off from the corner when the light changes. The rush of pedestrians hurrying to get out of the rain swells and carries Kira off, leaving Derek behind again, a lone straggler from the horde getting soaked to the bone more and more with every step. He moves aside and weaves through the crowd, eyes on the ground, focused on his slopping wet shoes as they slosh through puddles on the street.

He’s not sure who hits who, when it happens-- if it’s Derek’s fault for looking down or maybe the stranger’s fault for not watching where they’re going-- but between one moment and the next Derek’s--

Derek _knows_.

In the infinitesimal space between blinks, Derek goes from not knowing to being wholly aware of the feel of used spark plugs, coated in grime from an overlong tenure, heavy and slick in his hands. He takes a gasp of breath and can then recall every word of the Gettysburg Address, the speech from _Independence Day_ , and “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies. And though he’s had a deathly peanut allergy since he was small enough to fit in the bend of his mother’s elbow, it’s easy, now, to remember the taste of peanut butter and chocolate, the feel of it sticky against his hard palate, the coating of it on his teeth and the back of his throat, longing for more, more, more.

He whips about, turning wildly in the midst of a crowd of people intent to sweep him away to the other side of the street, and he knows, knows it in his heart, that he just brushed his soulmate for the first time.

He lingers on the crosswalk and stares after the pedestrians walking in the opposite direction and pants heavily, watching like a hawk to see if anyone so much as glances back at him. The sky clears and the rain putters out, gone as quick as it came, leaving the roads slick and Derek alone in the middle of the street, soaked to the bone and feeling like his world has been thrown off its axis.

What he keeps looking for is a sign, a tell from any of the people dispersing along the sidewalk-- a glance over a shoulder, a stall in a step, a gasp. He keeps looking until Kira tugs him away, hissing something he doesn’t catch under her breath. He keeps looking until the sound of blaring car horns has faded from his ears and his heartbeat calms enough for him to take in deep, steadying breaths again.

No one looks back.


	2. Chapter 2

_I’m sorry,_ Stiles is whispering, his arms locked around Derek where he’s pulled him close and arranged them back to front in the middle of the dreamscape. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ he keeps saying between kisses that he peppers to Derek’s jaw and neck and his bared, round shoulder. 

“Derek,” he chokes out, sounding about a thousand miles away and all the more miserable for every inch of distance. “I’m sorry.”

Derek never speaks, never turns, never makes any acknowledgment of Stiles’s pleas whatsoever. Stiles wakes up in the back seat of the Jeep with tears in his eyes, a crick in his neck, and a miserable, ugly feeling twisting in his gut.

They only have one week left in Los Angeles, and he probably just made the biggest mistake of his life.

***

“Wanna watch _New Girl_?” Kira’s asking Derek when Cora arrives and lets herself in. “Oh, wow,” she says, eyes wide and startled, “that was fast.”

“You _said_ it was an emergency,” Cora accuses, paused in the doorway. Not that she listened much to what Kira had to say. All she needed to hear to know what to do was ‘ _Derek’s upset._ ’ The rest of the work is frustrating but familiar and, ultimately, easy enough. “Has he been wrapped up in that blanket since you called me? Jesus Christ.”

“Um, well--”

She doesn’t wait to hear whatever it is, dropping her bag in Derek’s foyer instead, crossing the living room, and sitting on top of her brother and the quilt he’s hiding in.

“Get off,” he snarls, twisting his body to dislodge her.

“What the fuck are you doing? You look like an idiot,” she snaps back, holding no punches. It’s nearly midnight; she has to go back to work tomorrow, but here she is, handling this. She’s seen Derek in his slumps before; they’re typically petty and fatalistic and the best way she knows how to pull him out of them is by being vicious. It’s a tried-and-true method so, thinking nothing of it, that’s what she does. “You’re an _adult_ , Derek, not a fucking child. Get out from under the blanket and grow the hell up.”

“Hey!” Kira interjects. “That’s not--”

Derek finally manages to throw Cora off of him, then, only poking his head out of the blanket long enough to glare at her and hiss, “Get out of my house,” before curling back up. After a beat, she hears him mutter, gentler, “Kira, you should go home, too.”

Which-- _what the hell?_ Cora fumes as she pulls herself off the floor. Kira’s not the one who got dropped on her ass on a concrete floor just for _helping_. Why does _she_ get the soft voice?

“You know what?” she bites out, tone icy. “Fine.”

She means to leave but, before she can get her hand on the door to throw it open and storm out, leaving Derek to think about what he’s done, Kira catches her. “Can we talk?” she asks, looking pointedly at Derek for a beat. “Um… Outside?”

Cora spares the sad sack on the couch that is her big brother one last withering glare before nodding, her whole body stiff. Then she pulls open the door, steps out into the hallway and crosses her arms, watching with narrowed eyes as Kira closes the door behind them. 

“Sorry,” Kira says. 

Cora rolls her eyes. “Of course you are,” she sneers. It’s misdirected irritation, but the blow lands, and Kira looks satisfyingly intimidated even as she continues to ramble.

“Um, there’s not really a good way to say this, and I probably _should_ have told you on the phone, but there wasn’t really time. You hang up really fast, you know? So, I didn’t really get to explain--”

“Oh my god, if you don’t spit it out in two seconds I’m leaving,” Cora snaps.

“Derek met his soulmate!” Kira blurts.

The seconds after that are extremely tense. Kira goes beet red for whatever reason and puts her fingers to her mouth like she wants to take the words back. Cora, for her part, feels the blood in her veins go still.

“He _what_ ,” she hisses.

Derek’s a huge dumb romantic. Derek meeting his soulmate should end with a lot of dopey grins and stupid, shitty jokes and not her brother rolling himself up in a goddamn shame tortilla like he wants to let the couch swallow him whole.

“Um, well, they didn’t really meet, actually. But they definitely touched? I guess? We were just coming back from the diner, and Derek-- it was so weird, he just went completely still? I don’t know how to explain it,” Kira is saying, but Cora can’t follow most of the words, her blood too loud as it rushes in her ears.

Fury, she realizes with a sudden clarity. She’s _furious_. That’s what the twisting, hot feeling inside of her is.

And to think she called Derek an idiot. To think she thought this was just Derek being guilty and sad the way he’s been prone to getting ever since Laura-- to think that she had thought, even for a second, that he was _pathetic_. Jesus, she fucked up.

“What did they do?” she demands, her voice hard. “What did they do and what is their name? I’ll make them regret it.”

Kira looks at her like she’s grown a second head.

“Um,” she says. “No, you don’t-- they didn’t do anything. That’s the point.”

“What.”

“Derek’s soulmate, they… they didn’t even turn around. They just kept walking the other way, like they didn’t even notice him.”

It takes a long, hard minute for Cora to parse that out. She’s heard of strange reactions from soulmates when they first touch-- she knows firsthand how weird shit can get after what happened with Erica years ago. But to just… _not_ react? It’s unthinkable. 

She blinks. It takes next to no time for her to find the fury again, and she feels it go from a steady burn to something hard and unforgiving as ice, a deep and unmitigated freeze.

“I’m going to kill them,” she decides.

Kira gapes at her. “Um,” she says.

But Cora couldn’t care less about her right now-- is already moving away from her and throwing Derek’s door open again, stalking back inside and leaving Kira alone in the hallway.

And there he is-- her big brother, the stupid, dumb, dorky romantic curled in their mother’s shitty quilt in the middle of his equally shitty velour couch and, God, Cora’s going to kill the motherfucker who did this to him.

She’s going to _kill_ them.

But Derek comes first. So she pads over to him, careful and quiet, like she’s approaching an easily-startled animal. Once she gets her hands on him, she turns him gently onto his side and sits herself down on the edge of the couch in the curl of his body. Derek stays nestled firmly inside of the quilt until she pulls the cover away from his face with careful fingers, her own brow furrowed.

His expression is wary, like he’s expecting her to punch him, and honestly, when faced with how little faith he has in her ability to be earnest with him, she’s kind of tempted. She tamps down the urge, though, and focuses.

“I’m,” she says, stiff, then stops. There are probably good, kind words to say to him here, but whatever they are they completely escape her. Eventually she gives up on sentiment, looks away and thinks long and hard about the most honest and loving thing she could possibly say to Derek. The _right_ thing to say.

It comes eventually. She said it before, now she says it again: “I’ll kill them.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m-- you don’t just _do_ that,” she insists, anger starting to burn hot within her again. She clenches her fist in his blanket. “Who-- how-- people don’t just _do_ that!”

Kira passes Derek a glass of water over the back of the couch; he takes it gingerly, doesn’t say thank you. His eyes stay on Cora the whole time, even as he sits up to take a drink.

“I could wring their neck,” Cora continues, her anger a palpable thing. “You-- you’re an asshole, but you don’t--”

“It’s--”

“Don’t you _dare_ say this is okay, Derek, I swear to God,” she snaps.

It’s not okay. Derek met his soulmate, and the bastard _ignored_ him. That is the exact _opposite_ of okay.

He rolls over onto his back, and lets the blanket slip open. It’s enough of a truce for Cora to feel welcome to stretch herself out half on top of him, hugging him close. Which leaves them with their chests pressed together and her chin digging into his collarbone, the steady beating of his heart under her hand. They used to do this a lot as kids, before Derek got scouted in a goddamn auto shop of all places. But it’s been a while since they’ve had any practice being close to each other, and it feels like stretching a long-neglected muscle for the first time. 

If Derek’s uncomfortable he doesn’t show it, so she doesn’t bother moving. They’re quiet together for a long time, their breathing eventually synchronizing and slowing. Even Derek’s inhales sound dejected, she realizes after several minutes have passed. _Christ_.

“Go figure they’re an asshole,” she says eventually, once the intimacy between them becomes a little much. She props herself up with her elbow pressed to his gut and peers down at him again. Vulnerability has never been her strong suit-- or Derek’s, for that matter. The distance is a sort of comfort in itself.

He looks at her, eyebrows furrowed, so she clarifies, “Your soulmate. Go figure your soulmate would be an asshole.”

“Him,” Derek says. Now Cora squints at him. He clears his throat and says, “My soulmate. Him.”

“Oh.” Okay. “Well then _he’s_ an asshole, whatever.”

And Derek smiles.

***

“Do you want--” Cora asks three hours later when it’s time for her to go back home and be with her own soulmates. “I can call Erica, let her know--”

“Go home,” Derek says for the fifth time in as many minutes while curling a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her into a pseudo hug. It’s really just her forehead pressed to his collarbone, just above his mark, and his fingers pulling through her hair; there are no other points of contact between them. Again, for a little while, they just breathe. And again-- one more time-- Derek tells her, “Go home.”

“Boyd--?”

He takes a shuddery breath. Then lets it go. “You can tell him,” he decides, voice soft. Then-- “Erica, too.”

She pulls away to squint up at him, suspicious. “Erica? _My_ Erica? Since when are you two friendly?”

He shoves her towards the door, rolling his eyes. “Stop being nosy and _go home_.”

“You’re telling Mom, though,” she says as she goes. “I’m not going to be the bearer of this bad news.”

Derek scowls at the door after she closes it behind her, effectively cutting off any argument he might have made. He’s tried very, very hard throughout all of this not to include his mother, and she hasn’t tried calling for three, almost four days. He’s not about to break the silence between them now that they’re making progress. Especially not with bad news.

No one wants to tell their parents about a failed relationship-- let alone a relationship that’s failed before it even had a chance to begin.

He realizes with a stifled groan that it’s nearly two in the morning, which means he’s going to risk disrupting their tenuous film schedule if he stays up much longer worrying about this and feeling sorry for himself. He drags himself up his spiral staircase and into his bed, stripping out of his clothes as he goes.

It takes him surprisingly little time to fall asleep. It’s an unreasonably warm night, so he lays down over the covers, pushes a hand under his pillow, and is out before he can think himself into a low-grade panic all over again.

He doesn’t dream.

He wants so badly to think of that as a mercy.

*

The next morning, Erica tilts his chin up with two fingers to angle his face into the light. She’s quiet as she plucks at his eyebrows, but it’s a different sort of silence between them than what Derek’s used to. It’s as gentle a moment as Derek thinks Erica capable.

She steps away. “You’re pretty tired, huh?” she asks.

He blinks blearily back at her. She sighs.

“Yeah, thought so.” She turns his chair around so he can see his own reflection in her vanity mirror, and he winces to see the deep bags under his eyes, the hollow shadows of his cheekbones, the pallor of his skin. It’s exactly what he’d expect to see in a man whose soulbond was rejected less than twenty-four hours ago.

“It’s not--” he tries.

“I’m sorry,” Erica cuts him off, turning his chair back around to face her. She’s dabbing at her wrist with a makeup brush, testing the liquid concealer against her skin tone with a practiced eye. “I think it’s really shitty, what happened to you.”

He has no idea what to say to that, so he just nods.

Erica goes quiet again as she runs her brush carefully under his eyes, pursing and unpursing her lips as she works. Derek’s content, for once, to sit still and let her have her way with his face. Even if he wanted to fight her off, he doesn’t have the energy for it.

After the better part of half an hour, she takes one last look at her handiwork, nods approvingly, and turns Derek’s chair around again. He blinks at himself, then squints at his reflection, not entirely believing what he’s seeing.

Or, more accurately, what he’s _not_ seeing, since the bags under his eyes are completely gone and color has been painted back onto his cheeks. He still looks grim in the line of his mouth and the sharpness of his cheekbones, but it’s a damn sight better than it was before he got into Erica’s chair. He’s seen her pull off some impressive things before, but he thinks this may be her finest and subtlest work yet.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it.

“When I met Boyd for the first time, I was so scared,” she admits. He tries to meet her eyes in the mirror, but she’s looking away, down at the floor. “He and Cora saw my mark online, you know, from the--”

“Yeah.” Derek knows. If Erica’s surprised that Derek knows about her past, she doesn’t show it.

“The first time we touched, I actually passed out.”

Now she does meet Derek’s gaze in the mirror and smiles at his baffled expression. He’d thought he’d heard everything there was to know about how the people he was arguably closest to had met, but evidently not.

“It can be really scary,” she continues, coming around to stand between him and the mirror. “Nothing’s the same after that first touch. The first impression you get-- you have that for the rest of your life. I freaked a little.”

“Freaked,” Derek repeats, dazed by her candidness.

She ignores him, runs her fingers over his eyebrows to smooth them into place. “Boyd came without Cora, when we met. And the Rite only extends to initial meetings of soulmates so, after that first time, he couldn’t show up without being added to my visitation list. He wrote a little, at first, but I....”

She clears her throat and pushes her hair back using the back of her hands, the brush of her knuckles. Derek’s eyes slip closed as she rubs something wet over his lids with the tips of her fingers.

“So I get out-- you know, as you do-- and I denied his Facebook requests and changed the channel every time I saw one of his movies was on. It took me months to come around to the idea that he was my soulmate, that I could be that lucky. I didn’t even know Cora was in the picture yet, back then. They didn’t want me to be any more scared than I already was.”

It’s funny, Derek thinks, that he can know so many things about Erica but still feel like he doesn’t really _know_ her. He’s never wanted to, honestly, content to leave his tentative social circle to just Boyd and Cora. He regrets that now, seeing the serious line of her mouth and feeling the gentle touch of her fingers against his face where she blends his concealer in tiny increments. 

“The point is,” she continues, “I came around.”

And Derek wants, more than anything, to believe that his soulmate will come around, too. But, while he’s a romantic, he’s never been an optimist. It’s a fine line between two vastly different worldviews.

“Eventually, I mean,” she adds. Then she backs away from the chair and motions for him to turn. Derek does so dutifully. “I don’t know what your soulmate was thinking, and he’s definitely a jerk for doing it like--” she hesitates, “--like that. But we all have our reasons. They’re not all bad.”

It’s something to think about, maybe. But Erica passed out the day she met her first soulmate. Derek’s didn’t even flinch.

“Well, you’re all set,” she announces, her hands on her hips. Her familiar cockiness sliding back into place like a mask she can take on and off at will. Maybe she can. “Knock ‘em dead, Hale.”

***

Lydia settles outside of the lot for fifteen minutes in a discreet company car while she waits for Derek to finish getting out of makeup. After he climbs into the passenger’s seat, looking more exhausted than she’s ever seen him, she drives them both back to his apartment and follows him up to his loft where she listens, with horror, for fifteen minutes as Derek tells her that he brushed past his soulmate on the streets twenty-eight hours ago and was left alone in the middle of a crosswalk while his soulmate walked away without so much as a glance back.

It’s the worst possible scenario-- one she’s had nightmares about since Derek’s soulmark got revealed to the world. Now the nightmare has been realized, and she feels its burn like ice down the back of her dress.

She curls her body up tight, one leg crossed carefully over the other in a way that puts the pointed toe of her designer pumps close enough to Derek to intimidate him. She has the vague awareness of a migraine coming on as she holds her head in one hand, her fingers cupped over her eyes like she can keep the starkness of reality out even for a moment.

It’s not Derek’s fault, she reminds herself. There was nothing he could have done, and more importantly, there was nothing she could have done.

That doesn’t stop the vicious little voice in her head from saying _You could have, you should have, why didn’t you do something to prevent this?_ She chooses to ignore that for the time being, keeps her focus on Derek.

She sucks in a long, slow breath. “Tell me again,” she says, careful to keep her voice steady. “Slower.”

Derek sighs and no doubt rolls his eyes. “It was raining,” he begins again, but Lydia raises her fingers enough for their eyes to meet and glares at him for the stupid, inane detail. “I don’t know,” he insists. “It was raining, so it was hard to see.”

“This is LA,” she sneers. “It doesn’t _rain_.”

Derek’s jaw works. “It was raining,” he repeats, firm.

Lydia uncurls her body and gets to her feet, establishing a higher ground. It’s important to be in charge, it’s important to make it clear that-- in this moment-- she is not to be trifled with. Otherwise Derek’s leisurely stroll across a crosswalk in the middle of the day could send them on the PR nightmare of their lives. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s unwittingly put the safety, stability, and employment of his entire team in jeopardy; they may all be locked into a silent agreement to not talk about Kate, but it’s not like Lydia’s _forgotten_. Derek, given the opportunity, is prone to withholding crucial information for no apparent reason, and sometimes it’s her job to get it out of him, even if it’s like pulling teeth.

This in mind, she brushes her bangs back. “I’m trying to help you, Derek,” she says slowly, condescendingly. “Now, what I need is for you to _help me_ help you by telling me what the hell happened-- _honestly_ and without the bullshit.”

“It happened too fast!” Derek insists, getting to his feet as well, trying to regain control of the conversation. 

Lydia refuses to let him. Their situation is too precarious for that. “You want to have some stranger selling your secrets to the media for _fun_?” she snaps. “Then fine, it happened too fast. Remember to tell yourself that when they drag Cora into the light right alongside you-- you know, her and her two soulmates, one a child star and the other a convicted felon? The media just _loves_ rehashing that shit!” She drops her voice, then, and lands a dirty blow: 

“And how long do you think it will take for Kate to get involved, huh? A week? A day? Wouldn’t _she_ be happy with all of that media attention? If we’re lucky, maybe she’ll still have a few secrets about you she hasn’t spilled, and we can go through 2008 all over again! Fun!”

She’s riled up enough that she has to take a breath to come down, retract her patronizing tone and reevaluate her strategy. Derek looks miserable, his shoulders hunched up, his head ducked, and a stubborn glare turned her way. She moves back into his space, looks at him, and says, “I can fix this, Derek. I can get ahead of this for us, but in order for me to do that, Derek, I need something _real._ ”

All he does is glare at her, but she keeps her gaze steady, determined. 

When he looks away, his teeth clenched and his chest rising and falling, Lydia lets him break away from the space they’ve made so hostile. He heads towards the kitchen, but she wanders towards the wall of windows he has on the far side of the loft. It’s not that she _can’t_ help him without his full cooperation; she’s too good at what she does to need other people for much of anything. She’d just hoped this would be easier than all that. 

He disappears for some time while she collects her thoughts and paces about the room with her heels, click, click, clicking against the concrete floor. When he comes back she’s decided, and turns to face him with her chin held high.

“We’ll need to find him,” she says. Of this she’s been certain since Derek told his story the first time through-- that his soulmate didn’t so much as _turn around_.

“You think?” he grunts, curling in on himself miserably.

She waits out his huff until he straightens out and settles again on the couch, then she follows.

It’s not an easy industry, theirs. Too often their lives become commodities and their privacy becomes little more than a hypothetical. Derek, as an actor, has it even worse than Lydia can really imagine. But it’s her job to imagine it, and it’s her job to prevent it from getting so bad it’s unlivable. It may make her the bad guy, but so be it. Someone has to do it, and it might as well be someone who’s going to do it right.

Of course, Derek’s spoiled her.

His life has been a predictable thing for over a decade now, determined by schedules given to him by other people and contracts signed behind closed doors, simple for Lydia to handle and manipulate to maximum efficiency. Now there’s this-- the pictures and the soulmate and the fucking _media_ buzzing around it all, chomping at the bit for another taste. And his soulmate is a wildcard; his soulmate is here, in LA, and if he didn’t bother to stop and say so much as hello to Derek after they touched--

That makes Lydia nervous as hell.

The connection opened between them by touching isn’t a precise science-- Lydia knows because she studied it at length as part of her baccalaureate degree. There’s no way for Derek to understand what his soulmate’s intentions might be, and you hear enough horror stories-- even if half of them end up debunked on Snopes-- about betrayals in soulmate-celebrity bonds that you get nervous. After a lifetime of that, you start to see everything as a possible headline readymade for the newspapers. Lydia does, anyway.

And Derek-- Jesus, Derek doesn’t look like he’s even had the time or clarity of mind before this moment to consider the full implications of a soulmate who walked away after that first touch. He looks exhausted, his head tipped back and his eyes closed, his eyelashes dark smudges against his gaunt cheeks. It’s Lydia’s job to keep him safe, and she can’t shake the miserable certainty that she’s failed him in this.

“We’re going to find him,” she says, and Derek looks at her like he doesn’t quite believe it. So she says it again, firmer. “ _I’m_ going to find him, and we’ll figure this out.”

Derek closes his eyes and breathes. She settles on the couch, kicks off her heels, and curls up beside him, transitioning from handler to friend in a just a few easy seconds. It’s funny, she thinks, how calm she feels knowing that she’s decided on her plan of action. In the back of her mind, she’s turning the possibilities over in her head and building the plan. _I’m going to find him,_ she had said. And she means to follow through.

“Maybe he’s just a dumbass,” she hedges, eyes flickering up and meeting Derek’s. “He is _your_ soulmate, after all.”

Derek gives her the flattest, most unimpressed look she’s ever seen. He’s been tense all day and it’s starting to unnerve her, but considering he got abandoned by his soulmate yesterday and is facing an eternity of an unanswered soulbond, she’ll take it.

***

When Stiles trudges back into the motel room the day after he ran away from Derek’s touch and explains what happened, Malia smacks him upside the head. “You,” she shoves at his shoulder, throwing him off balance, “did,” then plants both of her hands to his pecs and pushes him, hard, “ _what_?”

“I freaked!” he cries, putting his arms in front of his face to shield himself. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that!”

“You _think_?” She lunges at him only to get caught by Scott’s arms around her waist, hoisting her backwards.

“Guys, stop it,” he says, raising his voice to cut through their squabbling. “We’re so close. We can’t afford to do this now.”

“ _Close_?” Malia snarls, yanking herself out of Scott’s grip. She doesn’t throw herself at Stiles immediately, but she looks sorely tempted. “He already touched him! He got his chance, and he walked away like a coward!”

Stiles glares at her. She ignores him completely.

“Who knows what’s going to happen now?” she asks Scott, then rounds back to shout at Stiles. “If you see him again, will he even know that it’s you? It’s not like you can just touch him again! You got one chance and you threw it away, you _idiot_.”

Stiles keeps glaring at her because he has nothing to say to that. He’s been asking himself the same thing since he bumped into Derek by pure accident in the middle of a busy Los Angeles street yesterday. He’d spent the night sleeping in the Jeep, avoiding calls from Scott and Malia, trying to wrap his head around the enormity of what he’d done and how badly he’d fucked up. Telling Scott and Malia had felt like a confession; now he takes his punishment with indignant, resentful silence.

“Great. Now we have less than a week left. You may _have_ to flash him,” Malia mocks, having blown off most of her steam. She seems calmer, at least, as she pushes her hair behind her shoulders and settles with her arms crossed over her chest.

Stiles does what he always does when he gets uncertain: he looks to Scott.

And, as usual, he gets exactly what he needs.

“We don’t know anything for sure yet,” Scott assures him, meeting Stiles’s gaze. “Touching him could still work. We just have to try.”

Stiles nods and tries to internalize that. All he can do is try, all he can do is try, all he can do is try. It doesn’t feel right-- but it’s either focus on that or focus on the dread crawling up from inside of him, and between those it’s an easy choice. He blows out a puff of air and tries to visualize the stress seeping from his body. When he feels a few feet further from the edge of panic, he says:

“Okay, so… What now?”

*

On Tuesday, they decide to let Malia and Stiles swap places for their stakeouts. It’s risky because Stiles-- as a dude-- is ten times more likely to be reported for hanging around a residential neighborhood with no tenants to vouch for his presence. But they have to increase his chances of running into Derek again, and Derek leaves his apartment at least once a day-- they’re lucky if he ends up at the diner once every _other_ day. This plan is slightly more dangerous, but it’s a helluvalot more efficient.

Besides, they’re running out of time. In three days, Derek will walk the red carpet for Aurora, Peter will be expecting their photos, and Stiles will have to pack his bags to go back to his nine-to-five.

So he parks Roscoe at the corner of Derek’s apartment complex’s street, pulls a baseball hat over his head with the visor angled low over a dark pair of sunglasses, and sets his iPod to shuffle.

Two hours into his watch, “Hey, Ya” is playing and Stiles is shamelessly belting along and snapping random pictures, not paying attention to his surroundings until he hears a knock on his window. He jerks wildly, spills his emergency rations of salt and vinegar potato chips all over himself, looks up, and gapes back at the pretty redhead smiling tightly at him from outside, beyond the glass.

His grip slips more than once in his rush to get the window rolled down with the manual crank.

As soon as they’re face to face, her eyes go sharp.

Stiles’s heart sinks into his stomach.

“I’m going to call the police if you’re not gone in thirty seconds,” she says in the most deadly-calm tone he’s ever heard. She glances down, then holds up her phone for him to see. She has an ongoing call that’s six seconds in. “Sorry, did I say _in_ thirty seconds? I meant thirty seconds _ago_.”

Stiles gapes.

After several, stunned seconds pass for him, she puts the phone to her cheek and says, “Hello? Yes, my name is Lydia Martin--”

 _Oh, fuck,_ he thinks, horrified as realization dawns. He knows that name, and he knows what that name means. Putting the pedal to the metal, Stiles burns rubber to get the hell out of dodge. When he’s about six miles out, his palms and forehead drenched in a cold sweat, he scrambles for his phone to call Scott.

“Did you meet him?” Scott asks in lieu of greeting.

“Well, I met the freakin’ _handler_ , that’s for sure,” Stiles says. “‘Met’ may actually be too a strong word, though, considering she just threatened to get my ass thrown in _jail_.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Scott breathes. “Where are you? I’m coming now.”

*

Scott meets him in the parking lot of a grocery store. Stiles watches him arrive, reach over the front seat to tip his taxi driver, then break out of the car in a dead run to Roscoe.

“What happened?” Scott demands when he gets there, breathing heavily.

“Nothing worth risking an asthma attack over, Jesus, dude,” Stiles hisses, jumping out of the driver’s seat and curling a hand around the back of Scott’s neck. “Breathe for me buddy, count of three, alright? One, two--”

Scott swats him away with a scowl. “I’m _fine_ ,” he insists. “What happened with the handler?” He looks around, over his shoulders, eyes wide. “She didn’t follow you, did she?”

“If she did, there’d probably be cops here by now.”

“Holy crap.”

“I know, right?”

“What are we going to do?”

This is the part Stiles has been stuck on. He knows that, at some point, he’s going to have to face Lydia Martin. She’s an inescapable part of Derek’s day-to-day life, and she clearly cares a lot about the guy-- or at least about keeping him from getting stalked. But she’s so damn scary, Stiles doesn’t know where to begin.

“I want to go home,” he grouses, slumping against the driver’s side door. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go back to my apartment, buy a bunch of games on Steam I have no intention of ever playing, and never think about Los Angeles or Derek Hale or Lydia freakin’ Martin ever again.”

Scott leans up next to Stiles and looks at him sympathetically. “You don’t really want that,” he says, voice soft.

Stiles raises his eyebrows at him. “I think you’re seriously underestimating how terrifying she is, dude. I thought my nuts were going to drop off and present themselves to her right then and there.”

“She probably just thought you were a real paparazzo,” Scott says, being reasonable. “I’m sure if we explained it to her she’d understand.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “You’re not seriously suggesting that we go _back there_ , are you?”

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with!” Scott hurries to say. He looks away, out at the cars flying past on the road beyond the parking lot. “But we have to face her sometime. At this point, we’re running out of time to make this happen by ourselves. Maybe we need a little bit of help from the inside.”

“But Scott,” Stiles groans, “She might actually be the _devil._ ”

Scott gives him an unimpressed look as he heads around to the other side of the Jeep. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Stiles hops back into the driver’s seat and puts his key to the ignition. “Remind me that you said that when she’s turning our scrotums into handbags later.”

The sound of the engine purring to life drowns out Scott’s amused little snort.

***

Scott knows a few things about Lydia Martin: she’s Derek Hale’s handler, who is officially responsible for getting him from one place to another without being mobbed by wild fans, and who is unofficially responsible for the maintenance of Derek’s schedules and wardrobe and work phone; she’s around Scott’s age, but she graduated several years before him and Stiles because she’s a literal genius, and her original study in school while she still attended was in Soulmate Sciences.

Scott also knows that Lydia Martin has approximately a 1 in 4,800,000 chance of being his soulmate.

The idea has been nagging him quietly since they first spoke to Peter Hale a week and a half ago and learned about Derek’s team. Peter had described Lydia as ruthless, calculating, and creative-- which had made all the color drain from Stiles’s face. But there’s two sides to that story, and the side that Peter had been deliberately keeping from them was one Scott was all-too aware of: Lydia was probably only that way because she had to be for Derek, to protect Derek.

Of course, Scott didn’t know her, so maybe she was that way naturally and happily. But he couldn’t believe that someone would be cruel for the sake of it, and he was especially unwilling to believe that anyone named _Lydia_ could be that way.

Most people had precious few premonitions about their soulmates; Scott only had one.

He’d woken up the day of his sixteenth birthday with a single name in his head, pulling in his gut. His true north. There was no sentiment attached to it-- no signs as to whether or not his Lydia was meant to be his friend or lover or what. All he had was a name.

A name and the diamond above his heart, a bright blood red against his skin.

While he and Stiles round back around to Derek’s neighborhood, Scott tries to ignore the twisting in his gut that’s propelling him forward. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, probably. There are nearly five million people in the world named Lydia; what are the chances that his soulmate and Stiles’s soulmate would have their lives so conveniently interwoven already?

It’s a false hope, but Scott’s heart feels huge in his chest and he picks up the pace as they round a street corner and end up at the gate outside of Derek’s apartment complex.

“She’s probably off getting her flying monkeys to chase after me or something,” Stiles mutters, and they keep walking for a few more paces.

Scott hums. “Maybe she took Derek somewhere?” He’s looking around for any sign of her-- cop cars or red hair or, hell, even Derek. “Or she just went back inside for a little while.”

“If we’re lucky, maybe she left and we won’t have to face her today.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “I’m starting to think Malia was right.”

Stiles squints at him. “Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?”

“Maybe you _will_ have to flash him.”

Stiles makes an indignant noise and elbows him. “You _jerk_. You know-- oh, fuck, did you hear that?”

They both go completely still, holding their breath until, sure enough, Scott can make out the clicking of heels on the sidewalk and a voice, raspy but unmistakably feminine--

“No,” she’s saying, sounding annoyed, “he took off when he thought I was really calling 911. Like the cops have been any help to us at all since this started.” A sigh, then. “Well, I took down his license plate number, and I’m going to see if they can get a name. We’ll go from there.”

Stiles grabs Scott’s arm and hisses, “ _That’s her,_ ” into his ear. 

His grip is tight to the point of being painful. Scott curls his fingers around Stiles’s and eases his grip with soothing little pets. “Okay, just stay calm.”

“She threatened to send me to jail!”

“She _tricked you_ into thinking you were going to be sent to jail,” Scott corrects. “Didn’t you hear her?”

Lydia speaks up again, her voice sounding a lot closer, probably just around the corner. They don’t hear her heels, though, so she must have stopped in her tracks. “I didn’t see anything, but if we get a name, we can find him and ask. Someone’s paying these idiots and telling them where to find him.”

Stiles gets both hands on Scott and says, “Crap, she’s coming. What are we going to do?”

“Just… be normal?” Scott suggests, matching Stiles’s whisper.

Stiles looks murderous. “I hate you,” he accuses. “You’re going to get me de-balled, and I hate you so much for that right now.”

“She’s not going to de-ball you! No one _does_ that!”

“You don’t _know_ that!”

“Maybe not, but I’m _pretty_ confident.”

“Oh my god, she’s going to see me,” Stiles hisses. Then he’s dragging Scott in front of him, their chests pressed together and slumping against the fence at his back to make himself look shorter than Scott.

“What are you doing,” Scott hisses back.

“I love you, buddy,” Stiles tells him, clapping him on the shoulder. “And since you love me too, please just go with it. It’ll be just like the movies.”

“Stiles, _no_ ,” Scott snaps when Stiles tries to pull him in. “We have to talk to her.”

Stiles makes an infuriated noise. “ _Scott,_ ” he pleads.

“I’m not making out with you on the sidewalk in front of your soulmate’s apartment just because you don’t want to ask for help!” 

But Stiles looks determined. “Scott,” he tries. “Scottie, Sc--”

“No way,” Scott says, firm. “Besides, isn’t she a genius? I don’t think us making out is going to hide you from her.”

“Scott, I didn’t want to say this,” Stiles threatens, raising his voice, his chest puffing up with false bravado, “but if you don’t make out with me right now for the sake of my balls, you will be dead to me.”

Scott’s been dead to Stiles at least sixteen different times since they met; as far as threats go, there’s not a much weaker one Stiles could have picked.

Before he can say anything, though, Stiles’s eyes are going wide as saucers and he’s saying--

“Oh, fuck.”

And, from just over Scott’s shoulder, Lydia Martin says, “Oh, fuck is right.”

***

Hours after she sent Stiles off to stalk his soulmate, Malia gets a text message from him. It’s familiar, and she knows what it means because all three of them had programmed it into their phones during the car ride down to LA, just in case: 

_SOS!!!!!!!_

Attached is Stiles’s current location: Derek Hale’s street-- which, if Malia were at the diner (where she was _technically_ supposed to be) would have been half an hour’s cab ride across town. Fortunately, she’d crossed town about an hour ago so she could run through In-N-Out for lunch, which now puts her about a block away from whatever trouble Stiles has managed to land himself in.

She doesn’t bother with a response text; if they’re in really rough shit, they won’t be looking at their phones, anyway.

“Hey, kid,” she says, grabbing a random guy by his shirt. “I have to go, take these. They’re yours.”

He looks bewildered and a little wary, the way city people always get around her, but he takes the bag she shoves in his hands without arguing. On her way out of the crowd, as she’s shouldering past people hovering around the door, she hears him say “Oh, sweet, _animal style._ ”

“You are going to owe me so much for this, Stiles,” she growls, pushing out the door at last and into the grimy Los Angeles streets.

***

“Do you _want_ to go to jail?” Lydia asks. “I ran you off _less than an hour ago_.”

“I just couldn’t resist,” the paparazzo says, crossing his arms defensively across his chest. He glares at his friend. “One might even say I’d been _compelled_.”

“Besides,” his friend says, “we know you weren’t really calling the cops. We heard you on the phone just now.”

Lydia goes still, eyes narrowing on the pair of them. When she’d rounded the corner they’d been squabbling, having some sort of argument about how they should be making out, completely unaware of her. She’d just assumed that they’d been at it for a while, that they hadn’t heard her coming. Apparently, she was wrong. 

Not a feeling she has a lot of experience with, admittedly.

She demands, “Who sent you here?”

They hesitate for a beat. Then the paparazzo’s friend says, “We actually came here to talk to you.”

 _That_ gets her attention. There have been plenty of wannabe paparazzi in the area since Derek’s soulmark got revealed, and each of them have given the exact same story: the story brought them here, they just had to report on it, the world deserves to know what’s going on in Derek Hale’s life. She’d heard it all before, but never once had any of them looked her in the eye and told her she was what they wanted.

“Explain,” she says. “You have one minute.”

They spend forty-five seconds looking at each other, eyebrows waggling and noses scrunching and mouths curling. Finally, the idiot sighs the biggest, most resigned sigh Lydia’s ever heard, and his friend says three words that make Lydia’s blood stand still in her veins:

“He’s Derek’s soulmate.”

White noise rushes in, and she blinks owlishly at the pair of them. Here they are, two scrawny kids who look like fish out of water in north Hollywood, dressed in baggy clothes and baseball caps, patchy stubble coming in in places. They look like they haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a week, at least, and there’s nothing especially remarkable about either of them--

And Lydia’s supposed to accept that one of these kids is Derek’s soulmate?

She has her hand in the paparazzo’s shirt collar before she can think twice about it and jerks the material down and to the left. 

“Hey!” he hisses, but when he moves to step back, Lydia holds faster. 

The tell-tale curve of the top spiral of the triskelion is there, curling over the top of his collarbone. The placement is perfect, but Lydia’s seen imitations. The lengths people will go to to convince a celebrity-- however C-list-- that they’re meant to be together have made her cynical. She narrows her eyes at him, lets go of his shirt with a flourish, and steps away.

“Why should I believe you?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Um, because I have his mark branded on my fucking _skin_?”

She hums, flips her hair, does her best to look unimpressed. “How can I know if it’s a soulmark and not just some desperate kid’s imitation tattoo?”

“Because it’s _not_?” he insists, his face flushing with anger and eyes going hot. “I’d offer to bump into you while crossing a street in Los Angeles in the middle of an unexpected rainstorm, but somehow I don’t think it’d convince you.”

And Lydia doesn’t want to admit it but--

She stares.

Open mouthed, jaw slack, eyes widened, she stares at this scrawny, mole-covered boy and is at a loss. _It’s him, it’s him, it’s him,_ her mind screams at her. And she wants to rejoice-- here he is, this kid, coming into Derek’s neighborhood to reunite with him after leaving him in the middle of the street on Sunday.

And then she remembers--

“You left him alone in the street _days_ ago,” she accuses, her tone like ice. “And now you’re-- what? _Stalking _him?”__

He winces. “In my defense, I totally freaked.”

Or this could be the first sign of a soulmate who has every intention of being emotionally manipulative-- and had a good fucking plan to make Derek eat out of the palm of his hand. A one-sided rejection of a bond is like a low-grade burn and, with the right pressure placed on it, it could become torturous. It’s happened before. It happens every day.

And Lydia had seen firsthand the bags under Derek’s eyes the day after this kid left him on the street.

“So, can we see him?” his friend asks.

“Of course you can’t _see him,_ ” she snaps. “I don’t even know who you two are. Why would I ever let you see him?”

“Because I’m his _soulmate_?”

“What’s your name?” she demands of him.

“Why should it matter?”

She takes a step towards him, slow and careful, and is immensely pleased when he takes a step back, then another when she steps even closer. “Because,” she says, just as deliberate as the steps she continues to take, intimidating him back against the fence along the sidewalk, “I’m going to run every available, systematic check and look-up on you. Once I know everything there is to know about you and everyone you know, then and only then will I even _think_ about letting you near Derek Hale.”

“Soulmates have the Introductory Rite--” his friend says.

“What about what _Derek_ wants?” she snaps, rounding on him. “What about _his_ rights? Or what _he_ needs? If you think I’m going to open the door and wave you two into his life just because some arbitrary mark--”

“It’s not arbitrary!” the idiot insists. “This is my _life_.”

“You had your chance to meet Derek on your terms,” she says, her tone falsely sweet as she steps towards him again. He’s already all the way against the fence, but he backs up like he thinks he can scale the thing with just his back and hands. “As far as I’m concerned, you blew it. Now you’ll play by my rules, or you won’t play at all.”

“Okay,” his friend says, placating. “He doesn’t want to hurt Derek. Neither of us do. If it would make you feel better to get some information and run a background check, of course we’ll do that.”

“If it would get you to _back the hell off,_ ” Derek’s soulmate-- oh, God, Lydia thinks, his _soulmate_ \-- mutters.

“I want names,” she says. “Both of yours and anyone else who’s in the area with you.”

“We can do that.”

“ _I_ can’t,” Derek’s soulmate grumbles. “Not unless you have a pen and some paper.”

Lydia has a pen in her purse, but she doesn’t make a habit of carrying around paper; after some digging in his pockets, however, his friend comes out with a crumpled receipt. They move to pass them both over, and when their knuckles brush--

Lightning. 

***

The cab driver does a good job following the Google Maps view on Malia’s phone to Derek Hale’s street and an even better job at running all of the red lights along the way. She told him it was life-or-death and has already promised the guy fifty bucks if they succeed in getting Scott and Stiles the heck out of dodge. 

Not that Malia has fifty bucks. She quit her job in the middle of planning a wedding in order to come help Stiles unite with his soulmate; as far as she’s concerned, he can foot the cab bill for his rescue.

When she finds him, it’s not just Stiles. Scott is there and-- holy _shit_ \-- Derek’s handler. None of them are speaking. It looks like a threeway Mexican standoff, and Malia has every intention of jumping in before a trigger gets pulled.

“There they are-- stop!” she cries, leaning over the partition and pointing frantically at the sidewalk. Without missing a beat, her driver jerks the wheel immediately to the right, sending her flying across the back seat and into the opposite door with a _thunk_.

She scrabbles for the door handle and launches herself outside to find Scott, Stiles, and Lydia are all looking at her with eyes wide as dinner plates. That gives her the advantage, so she covers the distance between them in no time flat, grabs Stiles and Scott each by a wrist, and jerks them out into the street, towards the cab.

“Sorry, princess,” she says when Lydia tries to interfere, pushing the boys a few steps ahead and putting herself between them and Lydia. “I don’t know what you were doing with them, but I’m taking them now.”

”Malia, ow, what the hell,” Stiles bemoans, stumbling after her.

“Hey! Hold on,” Scott says.

“Would you two just shut up and get in the cab?” Malia snarls over her shoulder at them. “Get in and _go_!”

Stiles doesn’t put up any more of a fight; he seems happy enough to escape Lydia. Scott, however, says, “But--”

“Oh my _God,_ ” Malia groans. With a withering _stay right there_ look at Lydia, she turns and shoves Scott bodily into the cab, her hand on his head. When she ducks him into the back seat, she looks at Stiles. “You meant to send that SOS, right?”

Stiles looks lit up with gratitude, with more appreciation than Malia can handle seeing on his stupid face. “Hell yeah I did. She’s _terrifying_ and I owe you, like, forever for this.” 

“Yeah, tell that to him,” she says, pointing at the cab driver, who waggles his fingers at the rearview mirror for them to see. “You owe him fifty bucks on top of the fare. Bye!”

” _What?!_ Malia, wait--”

She closes the door to Stiles’s protests, slaps the hood of the cab twice, and watches as the driver pulls away, leaving her alone with Lydia Martin.

“So,” she says, turning around, hands on her hips. “What are we talking about?”

***

The ride back to the motel is a blur to Scott-- the minor argument Stiles and the cab driver get into over his tip even more so. After Stiles begrudgingly passes over three bills from his wallet, they watch the taxi pull away and take off down the street, their shoulders brushing through their shared silence on the front steps of the motel.

“Well, I think that went well,” Stiles says eventually.

To Scott, he sounds a hundred miles away. Or maybe underwater. 

Stiles continues. “What are the chances? Our soulmates already know each other. And work together!”

That gets Scott’s attention, and he turns on Stiles, feeling jittery. “You--?”

“Figured it out? Oh, totally, man,” Stiles says, shrugging, and they’re walking towards their room, then. “I saw the look on your face when Peter passed us the information on Derek’s team, but that little stunt out there? No way I’d miss that. Did you get a glimpse into her inner soul or whatever?” He waggles his fingers like he’s expecting sparks to come out of his fingers.

Scott nods dumbly. “I think I know, like, a hundred numbers of pi. Hold on.” He pauses to consider-- then. “Three-point-one-four, uhh... one, five, nine, two, six, five, three, five, eight, nine, seven, nine, three, two, three, eight, four six--”

“Holy _shit_.”

Another nod. “This is...” he trails off, doesn’t know how to put what he’s feeling into words.

Stiles seems to understand, though, clapping him on the shoulders and pulling him closer. “But, I mean, it’s cool, right? I’ve been freaking out about what would happen to us ever since we got to LA.” His arm slips away, then, as he moves to preemptively get out his key card.

Scott stops mid-step and catches him by the elbow. “What?” he asks, surprised.

“Huh?” Stiles asks back, face scrunched up, confused. “Oh, us. Yeah. You know-- if this thing with Derek works, I’ll have to move here, won’t I? And that was seriously starting to freak me out, but this way maybe we could, you know, take the plunge together. Or whatever.”

Scott hadn’t even _thought_ of moving yet-- not for Stiles and _certainly_ not for himself-- jeez. “You think you have to move out here?” he asks softly.

Stiles shrugs, and they start walking again. Slower this time. “It just seems to make the most sense, I guess. Derek’s career is here, right? It’s not like I have a great job waiting for me when I go back or anything.”

Stiles hating his job isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s surprising to hear all of this now. His delivery is calm and even, completely conversational. It’s a total giveaway of how much he’s been stressing over this, even if nothing else is.

“Hey,” Scott says, “you know you’ve always got me, right?”

They’re at their door. Stiles turns and looks at him, his expression unreadable before he breaks out a small, appreciative smile. “Yeah,” he says, “I’ll always have you.” He pushes the door open and says, “Anything else I should know about Lydia? Preferably something blackmail worthy, just to cover my bases.”

Scott blinks at him, following him inside. He asks, “Does the phrase _Dan Humphrey is Gossip Girl_ mean anything to you?”

Stiles sighs and shakes his head, looking fond. “Only that you’re still embarrassingly behind on your pop culture knowledge, Scottie.”

“Hey,” Scott says, and Stiles looks back at him from the foot of their bed. “What did you find out about Derek when you two touched?”

Stiles’s smile twists, and an unreadable expression crosses his face. He turns away from Scott, the lines of his shoulders and back as unreadable as his tone. 

“He wanted to teach history,” he says.

***

Stiles is alone and snapping pictures of the ceiling by the time Malia gets back to the room, her hair frazzled and her eyes wild. He watches her kick the door shut with his eyebrows raised.

She pauses, looks around. “Where’s Scott?” she asks.

“Allison’s.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Lydia Martin’s his soulmate.”

She freezes midstep and gapes at him. “So, let me get this straight,” she says, slowly, putting her foot down. “You sent me our emergency SOS message to get Scott out of his first conversation with his soulmate?” 

Stiles stays carefully-- damningly-- silent. 

Fuming, Malia takes a pillow off of her bed and pelts it at him. Stiles has just enough time to put his arms up to block it, but the second one she launches comes right as he’s lowering his guard and hits him in the face. “That’s it. It’s official. You two are seriously the worst soulmates on earth.”

“You’re the one who put us in the cab!” he cries, indignant. “First you brought the cab, and then you shoved us into it!”

“That’s kind of the point of an SOS text!” Malia counters. “What happened to _’Oh, Malia, I owe you so much’_?”

Stiles gets to his feet, gesturing widely with his hands. “You’d be grateful too if you had to spend fifteen minutes being interrogated by her!”

Malia’s mouth goes to a grim line, which is enough for Stiles to know he’s won. Malia was gone for nearly an hour; surely some of that time had to be spent with Lydia. She has to know what he’s talking about.

“So… Scott went to Allison’s?” she asks, her voice gentler. 

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs. “They have a lot of talking to do, probably.”

“Are he and Lydia a love pair?” 

And that’s where it gets tricky, isn’t it? “He doesn’t know. And I don’t think she does, either.”

Malia’s brow furrows. “What do you mean they don’t know?”

“The only thing Scott’s ever had before today was her first name. No premonitions or anything.”

“And when they touched?” she asks. “They touched, didn’t they? That’s how they know.”

Stiles nods. “I think Scott osmosed some pop culture knowledge and like a billion numbers of pi from her. I don’t know what else.”

“Weird,” Malia says. “I thought everyone kind of knew.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes, dropping back down onto the bed, eyes on the ceiling. “Me too.”

He jerks when she gets on the bed beside him, starfishing out on her stomach, one of her arms and one of her legs across his body. “I’m hungry,” she says. She pushes up on her forearms-- ignoring his pained _oof_ when she knocks him in the throat with her elbow-- puts her head in one hand, and looks down at him.

He blinks at her; she raises her eyebrows back at him. He narrows his eyes. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I just saved your ass from a 5’3” witch in Louis Vuittons,” she says simply. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re on snack duty for the night.”

***

The first time Stiles touched Derek was nearly three days ago, and it was a complete accident.

The first time he _sees_ Derek-- really sees him, in person, just a couple blocks away from the CVS Stiles had been planning on picking up snacks at-- Stiles very nearly loses his shit all over again.

He’s always heard “the camera adds fifteen pounds,” but he’s never believed it until now. In person, Derek’s leaner and the cut of his jaw is more pronounced, the contrast between his skin tone and his features less dramatic in natural light. The sight of Derek is unsettling and, coupled with the knowledge of who he is to _Stiles_ , makes him want to squirm out of his skin.

Derek’s waiting outside of a restaurant, thumbing through his phone like he just got out of lunch and is trying to decide what to do next. A girl with long, dark hair in a yellow-and-black gingham romper waves energetically at him when she comes out from the restaurant; he waves back with a little less force, and watches as she follows a crowd of pedestrians across the street.

Derek lingers, and Stiles tries to man up enough to approach him.

He’s kind of a mess, though. He hasn’t done his laundry since they showed up in LA a week and a half ago, and he hasn’t had much sleep in the past two nights-- since he first touched Derek.

But it’s now or never, maybe, so he rubs his palms down his face, slaps himself a few times, straightens the strap of the camera around his neck, takes a long, deep breath, and goes for it.

Derek seems to make up his mind about where he’s going, too, and starts coming Stiles’s direction which, holy fuck, is kind of terrifying. Seeing Derek Hale standing still was a lot, but he walks with purpose, and it’s-- well, damn.

But Stiles maintains his resolve and keeps walking, dodging a few day drinkers as they spill out of a bar and onto the sidewalk.

Derek looks up, and for one breathless second their eyes meet. Stiles has a hope, a tiny hope, that maybe that’s recognition in Derek’s face, that he knows him, maybe, and he picks up his pace. But Derek’s eyes drop to the camera hanging from Stiles’s neck and when he looks up again, his eyes are narrowed, dangerous--

By the time Stiles realizes his mistake, he’s within arm’s reach of Derek. He opens his mouth to say something-- probably something _devastatingly_ suave, knowing him-- when Derek moves his arm in a wide, sweeping motion, and, before Stiles realizes what’s about to happen, is shoving Stiles into the hedges lining the walkway up to some ritzy place with a French name.

The hedges are sharp and cut like knives when he lands in them, and Stiles cusses colorfully, trying to maneuver himself out of them or at least onto his back so he can cuss Derek out effectively or something. People are _definitely_ staring, too, which is great.

He ends up half on his side, leaves prickling him through his thin, dirty v-neck, gaping at Derek who looks--

Looks _horrified_. Possibly at himself, possibly at--

At Stiles’s collarbone, which has been exposed to the greater Los Angeles area for the second time in the past week, Jesus Christ. He scrambles to pull his shirt up and get out of the bushes all at once, but by the time he’s gotten to his feet--

Derek’s gone.

Leaving Stiles standing flushed with embarrassment in a threadbare t-shirt, wearing a camera with a broken lens around his neck, knowing that he’s blown his second chance.

***

Derek flees.

He’s ashamed to admit it, but that’s what he does. He takes one look at the man he shoved into the bushes, sees the familiar curling lines stamped to his collarbone, and flees.

Admittedly, it’s not his strongest moment.

It takes him a few minutes to realize where he fled _to_ , but when he calms down enough to assess his surroundings, he’s standing just inside the doors of a CVS, half hidden behind a cardboard cut-out of Mr. Clean. There’s a squat woman in a cornflower blue smock wielding a vacuum and trying to maneuver around his feet.

“Don’t tell Malia,” someone pleas as they come through the doors. “She will _actually_ kill me, Scott.”

Derek turns his head to follow the voice, and--

“Fuck,” he chokes out, ducking further behind Mr. Clean to hide himself. His eyes track his soulmate across the store, completely unnoticed. It’s an ironic twist of things for him to have run away earlier and now to be reduced to hiding behind an eight-foot-tall cardboard man, after being so upset about being abandoned by his soulmate days ago, but he can’t help it. He-- he just _freaked_.

And that’s how Derek ends up following his soulmate through a drugstore. He stays several rows over at all times-- safe from being found out-- while staying close enough to hear the interesting lilt of his voice. He’s curious. He can’t help it.

“Pretty sure he doesn’t care _who_ I am,” his soulmate is saying into the phone. “He shoved me into some bushes and took off like a bat out of hell. I’m telling you, let’s go back to Beacon Hills and call it a day. My pride can’t take much more of this.”

Derek flattens himself against the tupperware shelves as the man passes by suddenly. He’s not paying any mind at all as he juggles four family size bags of potato chips between his arms. Jesus. Derek can’t remember the last time he bought one bag of chips, let alone four at once.

“Uh-huh, yeah,” the guy is saying, then sighing. “I can hear it now: stupid Stiles lets meeting his soulmate blow up in his face again. _And_ manages to bust his best friend’s ex-girlfriend’s camera lens in the process. She’s gonna eat that up.”

He unloads all of his potato chips onto the belt of the cash register, and the cashier does a good job at only looking minorly annoyed that he stays on the phone throughout the whole checkout process.

Derek takes a while to commit these things to memory: the width of his soulmate’s shoulders, the curve of his buzzed head, the narrowness of his hips, the Mets logo on his ballcap that’s on backwards, even the flavor of the potato chips he’s buying. There’s a thousand details in the shape of him that Derek’s suddenly desperate to learn and know, to feel out with his hands and mouth and--

Shit.

But something stands out amongst everything else, more important than his taste in junk food or the way his body moves when he stumbles out the sliding doors and back out onto the street or the way he cradles his phone between his shoulder and ear while he slides his credit card back into his wallet and hoists the CVS bags up his forearms and into the crook of his elbow--

Stiles.

That’s his name, Derek realizes, and something inside of him uncurls, inexplicably warm.

His soulmate’s name is Stiles, and he likes sour cream and onion potato chips enough to buy four whole bags of them and there are no words that could possibly capture how desperately Derek wants to lick those crumbs from his mouth and chase the taste of him off the curve of his lips.

*

“What the hell is a Stiles?” Lydia snaps when Derek calls to tell her once he’s safe in his apartment, feeling like his heart isn’t about to beat out of his chest.

“His name,” Derek says, eyes closed his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “My-- my soulmate’s name.”

Lydia’s quiet for a beat. “Did you meet him?” she asks, and something in her voice makes him wonder…

“Did _you_?” he demands.

Lydia hums. “I asked you first.”

He pulls away from his phone so he can glare at it. When he moves it back to his ear, he bites out, “And you didn’t think I would want to know about that?”

“It could wait until after the background check came back.”

His brow furrows as he tries to process that. “You’re running a _background_ check on him?”

“It’s a precaution, Derek. Just because he’s your soulmate doesn’t mean--”

Derek hangs up on her out of sheer frustration. It’s not that Lydia’s wrong-- she’s _not_. Stiles is a stranger to him, and just because they’re supposedly two parts of a whole doesn’t mean that he’s not going to use or manipulate that bond for his own purposes. It’s happened before; it happens every day.

But that’s a cold reality to have to face less than an hour after learning your soulmate’s name, and it’s hard not to be bitter about it. It’s hard not to be bitter that this is so damn complicated, and it only gets worse at every turn. Behind every minor victory, there’s a whole new battle to be fought.

He rubs a hand down his face and resists the urge to yell.

*

Cora and Boyd come over the day before the _Aurora_ premiere under the guise of not having seen Derek in a while, but Derek catches onto their real game the second he opens the door. He doesn’t have anything to say about Stiles that hasn’t already been passed through the grapevine, and, frankly, he’s sick of people feeling entitled to the intimate details of his life.

“No,” he tells them, and he shuts the door in their faces.

They leave, and he gets two texts about five minutes later. Boyd’s says: _Thanks for that, no, really, I was hoping something would piss her off today so we could spend all day fighting about it._

Derek’s not fooled; Boyd and Cora’s “fights” are mostly Cora cussing through a fit of rage and Boyd nodding his head thoughtfully, curling a big hand behind her neck and rubbing soothing circles against her nape until she calms down. They’ve been together long enough that he’s perfected the art of calming her down in the stretch of time and road between Derek’s apartment and their home-- which, statistically, is when she’s most frequently pissed off.

Cora’s text to him reads: _FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!_

Feeling petty, Derek takes a screenshot and forwards it to his mother.

He’s all caught up on _New Girl_ and on strict orders to not work out any more than an hour a day throughout _Nitro_ production, so he ends up sitting on a stool at his breakfast bar, nursing a watery protein shake, playing Bread Kittens on his phone. That’s where he is when Lydia’s call comes through.

“That was fast,” she says when he answers, “still addicted to that stupid game?”

“Did the background check come back?” he asks, trying to dodge.

He can practically hear Lydia’s smirk through the phone. “As a matter of fact,” she all but purrs, “it did.” 

Lydia’s probably the only person who could get a background check running without having the first name of the person she’s trying to investigate; every day she’s on his side is a day he’s not losing sleep worrying about her being against him.

“I’m not going to bother telling you his first name, because you’re not going to be able to recreate the pronunciation, and, besides, he goes by Stiles pretty much universally,” she says. “Last name Stilinski, that’s where he gets the nickname. Twenty-four years old, sheriff’s son, with a pristine record to show for it. Not so much as a traffic ticket.”

“So he’s well-behaved,” Derek summarizes.

“He’s good at not getting caught,” Lydia corrects. “He works Monday through Friday at a call center that handles over-the-phone tech support. He’s ranked thirtieth in his department with high scores in problem solving and technical knowledge but low scores in handle time and customer service. He recently moved out of his father’s house--”

“Jesus, Lydia,” Derek interrupts. He admittedly doesn’t know much about background checks and what comes standard with them, but he’s fairly certain that at least half of this has come from… something else.

“-- into a studio apartment in the historical district of town. He’s got his Associate’s in some inane tech study, with no apparent plans for furthering his education. He seems to put a lot of emphasis on being close to home, presumably because of his relationship with his father, who became a widower in 2006 when--”

“That’s enough,” Derek cuts her off again. He doesn’t want to hear about Stiles’s mom’s death from anyone who isn’t Stiles.

Lydia’s quiet for a few seconds. “All in all, nothing here looks suspicious. Other than the fact that he was trying to suck face with my soulmate when I met him.”

Derek goes still all over.

There’s a lot to parse out in that sentence: that Lydia’s found her soulmate, evidently, is a big part of his shock. That her soulmate and his soulmate could be-- somehow-- romantically involved sounds like a tragicomedy made for TV waiting to happen. He takes a slow, deep breath to orient himself and opens his mouth to say something, _anything_ to break the tense silence between them when--

“Of course, upon running a series of investigative follow-ups on S. Stilinski, I managed to find just as much if not more information on his best friend, Scott McCall, who works as a nurse at Beacon Hills Hospital and most recently dated Allison Argent, the one and only. All reports pointed to him and Stiles being strictly platonic, over the past five years, though there’s a bit of a gray area prior. So. Do with that what you will.”

Ah. Well, that makes sense. Lydia going to these depths to research Stiles to protect Derek is a good cover, with it being part of her assumed job responsibilities and all, but knowing that at least half of her intent was to find information on her own soulmate sounds much more in character.

“Any criminal history on his friend?” Derek asks, humoring her.

“He’s essentially a small town hero,” she says. She sounds like she’s reading over something. “He volunteered as a firefighter through undergrad, graduated with a 4.0, and worked as a vet’s assistant through high school. Frankly, he’s out of your soulmate’s league.”

“I thought you said they weren’t romantically involved.”

“In life, Derek,” Lydia says primly. “My soulmate is out of your soulmate’s league _in life._ ”

It has to be telling, Derek thinks, that nine out of ten of his conversations with Lydia end with him hanging up on her.

*

That night is the first night that Derek finds _Stiles_ in his dreams. Before, the touches and kisses and whispers came from behind-- sprinkled over his shoulders, in his hair. Now he finds Stiles in that endless white space they share and knows him. Stiles lays him out onto the intangible sheets, on his back, and Stiles comes between his legs, a smirk pulling at his lips.

"Hey, you," he says when Derek gives into temptation and cups his face.

"You're here," Derek says, dumbfounded.

Stiles doesn't say anything-- Derek can't dream up what he'd say, is too overwhelmed by the look of him to think about anything else. Focusing is hard, though. He tries to catalogue the shape of Stiles's face and nose and mouth away, but the longer he looks at them the fuzzier they become, the less form they truly have.

Someday, Stiles will be real and sweet on top of him, outside of these dreams, and Derek will look his fill. For now, though, he contents himself with drawing Stiles into his arms, with kissing him and licking in, in, in until Derek feels the line between the two of them become fuzzy and, ultimately, disappear.

Stiles groans-- a distressed little _ungh_ noise he makes mostly in his throat, something Derek heard him make in the CVS earlier that day. That sound had followed him all the way home and right into his bed, where Derek had said the name Stiles to test it, over and over again, feeling it on his tongue, against his hard palate, and pressing on the back of his front teeth. Now it's found him here.

Stiles puts him on his stomach easily, and Derek hitches up a knee, spreading himself for Stiles, shameless like he'd never be if they were doing this in the real world together. But it's his dream, and he _wants_ , so he looks over his shoulder at Stiles and cants his hips up, encouraging.

Stiles grins at him, big and boyish, and slides up against Derek's back. The pressure of his body is more of an afterthought than anything in the dreamscape, but Derek's hot for it, twisting to pull Stiles closer, to get him up and where he wants him, deep inside.

But Stiles shushes him, rolls his hips slow and dirty, his cock riding the crease of Derek's ass, groaning. And Derek wants to do this, too-- wants to lay here and let Stiles have him, take his pleasure in Derek's body however he likes. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more.

With a twist of his upper body, Derek draws Stiles closer, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and almost completely faces him. Stiles's face is slack with pleasure as he jerks his cock against Derek's ass in uncoordinated little thrusts, his mouth hung open and his entire face flushed. Derek leans in to take a kiss off that mouth and Stiles says, "Fucking _shit._ "

"Yeah?" Derek asks him, and he nods furiously. "Do it, then, fucking do it."

Stiles lets out a startled gasp and falls forward into Derek, who's still twisted back a little. He doesn't feel the discomfort of his position here, though, and is free to enjoy the way Stiles curls over him and humps up, his body a machine as he thrusts against Derek's ass, his cock long enough that he slides precum across the swell of Derek's lower back when he pushes all the way in. His hands trail up Derek's thigh, his hip, into the dip of his waist. His teeth dig into the curve of Derek's shoulder, and he groans and cusses and calls Derek _perfect, fucking perfect, holy shit, just look at you,_ as he takes exactly what he needs.

"I found you," Derek hisses between grit teeth, taking his own dick in hand. "You're mine."

"Fuck, I am, I am," Stiles agrees, easing his bite to plant tender little kisses and licks to Derek's shoulder instead. "Yours, gonna have you all the time now. Just like this, Derek."

Derek groans, feels his heart swelling in his chest, wants to come. He tosses his head back and chokes out, "Stiles--!"

"Oh, Jesus, I'm coming, Derek, fucking _shit_ , your ass," Stiles gasps, and his hips press in hard-- painfully so, if Derek had been awake-- one, two, three more times, and there's a sensation of something wet and warm against Derek's ass and back, but Derek's so, so close he's--

Waking up, panting and desperate, in his bedroom, his hand in his pants and the ghost of his soulmate against his back.

*

For the most part, Lydia’s the best handler Derek could ask for. She specializes in damage control, and she has a knack for quick decision-making. She bosses around Derek’s accountants and lawyers without batting an eyelash, happy to take the lead instead of waiting for it to be given to her, and Derek trusts her enough to let her lead him by the nose most of the time.

Most of the time.

But he draws the line at crushed velvet pants.

“I’m not wearing these,” he tells her.

“Derek, these are by Araya Calavera,” she says matter-of-factly. “You don’t wear these pants-- these pants wear you.”

“I think they’re nice,” Kira says, but she isn’t the one who’s going to have to suffer with inner-thigh chafing if he wears these to the _Aurora_ premiere, so Derek ignores her.

“Yeah, Derek, they’re _nice_ ,” Lydia parrots. “Now put them on.”

“No,” Derek snaps back.

“Derek,” Lydia’s tone goes sharp, suddenly, and her chin is raised high so she can meet his eyes. “Put. On. The pants.”

“If they start to itch we’ll bail out early,” Kira says gently. “Scout’s honor.”

They both know it’s a lie-- too much is riding on this night for them to skip out. But Derek yanks the pants off the hanger anyway and disappears upstairs, his glare unwavering every step of the way.

***

“I’m gonna throw up,” Stiles warns them as Malia drags a lint roller across his back. 

“If you do that, they won’t be able to find your body,” she promises..

He gapes at her while she pats his shoulders down, smoothing the wrinkles out. When she reaches for tie, though, he slaps her hands away.

“You just spent like ten hours tying it,” he snaps. “It’s perfect, leave it alone.”

Scott’s looks calm enough, but if Stiles looks closely enough, he can see the tension in his shoulders and the whites of his knuckles where he’s gripping the steering wheel.

“How ya doin buddy?” he asks, hooking his chin over the shoulder of the driver’s seat.

Scott’s quiet for a second, careful about using his blinker to switch lanes. “I want this to work,” he admits eventually. “I want you to meet him. For real, this time.”

“Hey,” Stiles says, ruffling Scott’s hair. “I’ve got fate on my side. Can’t beat that.”

Scott smiles, and their eyes meet in the rearview mirror for several seconds.

“You two are so weird,” Malia grunts, climbing over the camera equipment and console to get back into the front seat. “Here, take your badges. We’re almost there.”

*

They park blocks and blocks away from the event and have to walk the rest of the way there, but they get stopped at the press entrance when a girl who looks vaguely familiar puts a hand to Stiles’s chest and looks up at him with wide brown eyes and a small, excited grin.

“Stiles, right?” she asks. “I’m Kira, Derek’s publicist. Nice to meet you.”

“Right,” Stiles says, his head spinning at her forwardness. “Am I about to get tackled to the floor by security guards, or…?”

She laughs awkwardly and pulls her hand away. “Oh, no, sorry. I’m actually really glad you’re here! Lydia said you might be trying to sneak in.”

Scott goes stiff beside Stiles, not relaxing until Stiles curls his fingers over his wrist in a small, reassuring gesture.

“And what’s the verdict?” Stiles asks Kira when he turns his eyes back to her. “Are we cool?”

Kira looks confused for a second. “What? Of course we’re cool.”

Stiles levels her with a flat stare.

“You’re Derek’s soulmate,” she says, like that explains it.

“You realize I’ve been threatened with police action _twice_ now, right?”

She looks put out. “Well,” she says, “we didn’t know who you were then! Now we do, so...”

“Right, whatever. Can we go in now?” He jerks his head in the direction of the red carpet, where he’s been planning on seeing Derek for days now-- some bullshit, hyper-romanticized scenario where their eyes meet across the sea of fans and photographers and they slowly but surely gravitate towards one another. The idea of that slipping between his fingers has him feeling out of his skin with anxiety.

“Oh, Derek’s already inside,” Kira tells him, and Stiles gives her an incredulous look, mouth hanging open as he tries to find the words to say.

“Can we get in there?” Malia demands. She advances on Kira in a way that’s not completely unthreatening.

“Well, yeah,” Kira hurries to say. “That’s why I’m out here waiting for you, you know?”

Malia looks mildly murderous. “And you didn’t--”

“Thank you for doing that,” Scott says quickly, interrupting Malia’s growing temper. “We thought this thing was starting a little later.”

“Wait. There’s room for all three of us, right?” Stiles asks. Kira turns immediately bashful.

“Actually,” she says, and Malia scoffs. “I only have the plus one with me right now. But I can get others! Um, maybe.”

“What do you think, Stiles?” Scott asks from behind him.

Stiles thinks about it hard for minute before deciding. “I’ll be fine. You guys go back, maybe get some food or something. I’ll call if I need anything.”

Scott tosses him the keys to Roscoe and says, "We'll take a cab back. Be careful if you're out late." 

Stiles nodes and pulls the badge and camera off his neck and passes them to Malia.

She points an aggressive finger at him. “I swear to god, Stilinski, if you chicken out again--”

“Um, well, the movie’s starting soon,” Kira interrupts, reaching for Stiles’s hand. “We should go now, if you want to get a seat next to Derek.”

Stiles gawks at her. “Next to who, now?” he asks, suddenly nauseated.

Kira squints at him like she’s not sure how to parse that out. “Derek?” she asks, saying each syllable slowly. “Your soulmate Derek? Derek Hale?”

“Yeah, I know who he is, thanks,” Stiles says, voice thin. “Um, on second thought--”

“Come _on_ ,” Kira insists, tugging on his hand and pulling him with her where she goes. “He’s not going to _bite_ you.”

Stiles has had a few pretty vivid sex dreams that say exactly the opposite, actually. But Kira’s pulling him along through a sea of people, and he’s helpless to do anything but follow as best he can.

*

It occurs to Stiles, somewhere between the lobby and the room where they’re screening the film, that he’s never been to a movie premiere before. A woman with narrowed eyes makes him turn over his phone and keys while a man with a taser attached to his belt makes him stand in place while he waves a metal-detecting wand around Stiles’s body.

“Okay, go on through,” the guy says, unhooking a velvet rope, and Stiles hurries past to where Kira’s already ahead, waiting for him.

“Do you want any popcorn or anything?” she asks, waving at a table behind her where several tubs of popcorn are sitting, waiting to be snatched up.

The thought of eating makes Stiles’s stomach whirl angrily; he shakes his head and lets himself be lead by the arm into the movie theater where the lights are already low but things aren’t quite pitch black yet.

There are a few celebrities that Stiles notices here-- many from Aurora and some from other films he’s seen over the last few years. Other people who look important and tangentially “industry” are there, too, though Stiles couldn’t name any of them if you asked. A lot of people here are probably like him: lucky bastards who get to have a night sitting close to some Hollywood hotshots while they watch the premiere of one of the biggest movies of the season.

Though, more importantly for Stiles, he gets to sit close to his _soulmate_ who is--

\-- there, towards the back of the theater, left of dead center by a few seats, with Lydia to his left and two empty seats to his right. One of which is, presumably, for Stiles. Kira’s been sidetracked, though, by someone who’s taken her aside for a conversation, and Stiles doesn’t dare approach Derek alone, so he just sort of waffles at the foot of the stairs, trying not to look like too much of a doofus.

He keeps looking back at Derek, now hyperaware of him. He’s hunched in his seat a little, curled over his phone and jabbing his finger at the screen with purpose, like he’s playing a game. Stiles can see Lydia’s eyes on his screen, though her body is turned away from his and held in straight, careful lines.

But then Derek looks up and their eyes meet over the heads filling the seats, and Stiles’s throat goes dry.

Kira’s back at Stiles’s side suddenly, startling him and saying, “Sorry, I’m so sorry. That-- sorry. Let’s go sit down, okay?”

He blinks at her. “Uh, okay.”

Every step up to the back of theater takes Stiles’s anxiety a little higher. By the time they’re saying, “excuse us, sorry,” to get past the few people sitting between them and their seats, his palms are sweaty and his mouth is dry as a bone. He pulls at the collar of his button-up shirt anxiously, and when Kira takes the first empty seat, leaving the seat directly to Derek’s left for Stiles, he freezes.

Derek looks at him again. His eyes had been downcast their whole way up; Stiles knows because he was looking. 

Stiles, panicking, says, “Hey.”

And Derek Hale, Stiles’s soulmate and recurring fantasy and _actual human being, holy shit,_ says “Hey,” back.

Stiles takes a seat.

***

_Aurora_ ’s probably going to get really good reviews. It’s a live-action Disney film directed by Adrian Harris and led by Braeden, so, in Derek’s eyes, its success is a forgone conclusion. Despite that, though, he finds it impossible to focus on the movie unfolding in front of him when he’s sitting in a dark room with his _soulmate_ next to him.

Stiles is still in every way but one: he keeps pressing the thumb of his left hand to his other left hand fingers mindlessly. Forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky-- repeat. Sometimes he pauses the pattern for long minutes before resuming it, but for the most part it’s constant. It’s also silent, so in any other situation Derek wouldn’t have noticed, but Stiles’s lap is in his peripheral, so he can see where Stiles has his hands between his knees, the way he’s pulled in, not allowing himself to relax completely.

Derek can relate.

Once he’s noticed one harmless detail about Stiles, though, it’s like he can’t stop noticing all sorts of other things. He’s a mouth breather, for one, his breaths soft and quiet. Derek doesn’t have a good excuse to turn his head to check, but he’s sure his jaw is slack with it.

He also has his hair shorn, which--

Well, a buzzcut is a strange look for just about anybody, but maybe it suits Stiles. Derek would probably have to look at him for longer than forty-five seconds to make up his mind about that.

When Stiles shifts his weight about halfway through the movie, just adjusting to get comfortable after an hour of sitting in the same place, his shoulder brushes Derek’s. Derek sucks in a sharp breath, suddenly overly aware of _himself_ , of his breathing and the way his body is arranged and his _hair_ and--

Lydia elbows him _hard_.

“Stop freaking out,” she hisses at him under her breath, though her eyes are still on the movie, her body still turned away from him.

He glares at her, which is ineffective without her attention, but it makes him feel better.

He doesn’t stop freaking out, but when Stiles mutters, “Sorry,” under his breath towards Derek, he says, “Don’t worry about it,” which feels like progress.

Stiles settles into his seat after that, relaxing a bit more than before, and Derek gives up the ghost of paying attention to the movie in favor of turning his head enough to really look at him. The light of the screen moves across Stiles’s face, casting and chasing shadows across the planes of his face. He turns his head to meet Derek’s eyes, jaw slack and mouth open before he snaps it shut and purses his lips.

Something gets smashed on screen suddenly and they both jump out of their skins, gazes snapping forward to catch what’s just happened.

They don’t make eye contact again for the rest of the movie, but their shoulders touch throughout and maybe Derek doesn’t pull away until the house lights are rising and Lydia is dragging him out of his seat and pushing him towards Braeden, who’s got her hands planted on her hips and has an eyebrow cocked in his and Stiles’s direction.

“Go,” Lydia hisses at him. “You can take that idiot out for coffee or something after you’ve rubbed elbows.”

“I’m not staying for the after party,” Derek insists as she’s herding him down the stairs, though he’s twisting his body to look in Stiles’s direction while he says it. Lydia makes an infuriated noise.

” _Fine,_ ” she snaps. “Now go.”

Derek goes. He imagines he can feel Stiles’s eyes on his back every step of the way.

*

An hour and a half later, Derek feels like he’s ready to punch his way out of rubbing elbows. He saw Kira and Stiles disappear around the corner fifteen minutes after Braeden whisked him away, and Kira’s been texting him things like _he’s funny!_ and _he’s never seen new girl, you’ll have to catch him up_ since they left. To add insult to injury, Braeden ditched him with a bunch of people he didn’t really know the second she caught the eye of a pretty blonde she wanted to meet.

Leaving him alone and clenching his jaw through an extremely one-sided conversation with Adrian Harris when Kira sends him a picture of her and Stiles, her arm slung over his shoulders and their heads tipped together.

Stiles looks excruciatingly underwhelmed, maybe a little nervous. Or, hell, maybe Kira just caught him off guard. The message with the photo reads: _i have to go now, big day tomorrow!! lydia’s abducting your boy i think._

As if on cue, Lydia texts Derek: _Alright, stop mingling and come save me from this right now._

“Excuse me,” Derek says immediately, not looking up from his phone. He has to shoulder his way through the people milling about the room and duck his head avoid making eye contact with anyone who might still want to talk to him.

He finds Stiles and Lydia outside, Stiles’s shoulders pressed to the redbrick wall near the side entrance, the rest of his body arched outwards just so, his fingers tapping a rhythm against his thighs. Lydia’s arms are crossed, but she’s smiling-- barely, but enough that Derek can recognize it. He has to stop several paces away from them just to take it in.

It’s surreal, he thinks, _seeing_. Seeing and knowing who Stiles is to him. Or who he’s supposed to be, anyway. 

Lydia notices him, turns her face up to meet his eyes, and that small smile is still lingering on her lips.

“Well,” she drawls, crossing the distance to Derek. She settles her hands on his lapel, palms down, and smooths his suit out with slow drags outward. “This has been fun, but my weekend started six hours ago, so I’m going home.” She looks up at him, eyes narrowed and lips twisted into a smirk. “ _Try_ not to end up on the cover of _National Enquirer_ while I’m gone.”

Derek rolls his eyes; Stiles makes a sound like he’s choking on his tongue and flails off the wall.

Lydia lowers her voice. “He’s obnoxious,” she says. “Good luck.”

Luck is kind of inconsequential when you’re looking at your soulmate, but Derek understands what she means. Stiles is nothing like he expected, had he really considered what his expectations were before. Stiles is tall and broad, clumsy on his feet, and expressive. 

Lydia leaves after patting Derek’s shoulder-- a friendly thing, maybe a little apologetic, maybe a little reassuring, probably both-- and the silence between him and Stiles stretches out until they can no longer hear the clicking of her heels on the cement. 

“So,” Stiles starts, “um-- I was thinking-- well-- coffee?”

As a rule, Derek doesn’t drink anything caffeinated after four PM. He says, “Yeah, sounds good,” anyway.

*

Coffee is-- awkward.

Derek’s favorite diner is all the way across town, so Stiles uses his phone to search for something good nearby. The closest place only has three stars, but it’s after midnight and the service isn’t really the point and they both know it, so they head that way without exchanging any conversation. By the time they stumble in, Derek’s equal parts anxious and _exhausted_. 

But he lets Stiles lead them to a booth and doesn’t say anything when they end up closer to the front door than he usually prefers because he’s not sure how to explain that he doesn’t like being in the middle of a restaurant, tries to get against as many walls as possible so he can people watch in comfort.

Stiles doesn’t seemed bothered by sitting in the middle of the room, though. In fact, he doesn’t seem bothered by much at all. He orders a coffee with cream, no sugar for himself, turns his attention to Derek and stares at him expectantly for a few long moments before Derek realizes it’s his turn to order.

“Shit, sorry,” he mutters. “Decaf for me, and, um, as much cream and sugar as I can get.”

Stiles’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline and Derek ducks his head, feeling embarrassed.

“Hey, sorry,” Stiles says after the waitress is gone. “I should’ve thought-- you don’t like coffee?”

Derek shakes his head but doesn’t offer anything by way of explanation because he’s trying to make his eyes focus enough that he’s no longer staring at _four_ Stileses. Most nights he’s in bed by 10PM. Being out until almost two is-- practically unheard of for him, actually. But everything’s been different since he first touched Stiles nearly a week ago.

He’s had a lot of late nights this week, but they’re not helping him much now.

Stiles loosens his tie and looks away, rubs at his nose with his thumb.

When he looks back at Derek, he says, “So, um, that movie was pretty good, right? Braeden is the best. I was really pumped when she made the transition from music to acting. She’s great.”

Derek blinks at him, dazed.

Stiles slumps in his seat, rolls his eyes, and starts fiddling with the rolled up silverware on the table in front of him.

They sit in silence for a long time, and every second Derek sees slipping away is another second of him knowing he _should_ do something but also resenting that he has to do something. It’s late, and he feels like he’s going to throw up he’s so tired, and he doesn’t know what to _do_ with Stiles, who is a little twitchy and clearly waiting for Derek to contribute _something_.

Kira would know what Derek should say, probably, and Lydia would be the one to make him say it. 

But on his own, Derek’s drawing a blank, and when their waitress comes by to drop off their coffees, Stiles reaches for his mug right as she’s setting it down in front of them, and their hands knock. Coffee splatters over their knuckles and onto the table, and Stiles says, “Oh, crap, sorry, sorry,” right as she’s saying, “Oh, don’t worry about it,” and they’re smiling at each other and Derek--

Scowls. Tries to make sense of what’s in front of him. Tries not to feel bitter and resentful towards a waitress who’s just doing her job and happens to have a more amicable interaction with his soulmate than Derek’s managing to make happen.

“Why are you here?” he asks, his voice sharper than he means it to be; the waitress looks at him like maybe she thinks he’s asking her that, but he’s not, and she must get that, because she finishes wiping up the coffee spot and leaves quickly and quietly.

Stiles blinks owlishly at him. “To... meet… you?” he answers cautiously, slowly.

Derek frowns. “You’re from Beacon Hills. That’s near San Francisco.”

There’s a beat where they sit staring at each other that Stiles eventually breaks by slurping his coffee. 

“As a dude who got contracted as a freaking paparazzo in order to get close to you, which ended up being… not totally necessary in the end,” he muses, “I shouldn’t be surprised that you know where I’m from. And yet.”

“Lydia,” Derek says with a shrug, like that explains it.

“Ah,” Stiles says, like it does.

Silence falls between them again, and Derek lets what Stiles said to him sink in some more. It’s hard to say how he feels about Stiles being connected in any way to the paparazzi, but if the means justify the end--

Stiles gulps down his coffee, his swallows loud and his neck long, and Derek waits for _something_ to make him feel grounded here in this strange diner with this strange kid, but all he feels is tired. Down to his bones, he feels tired.

Then Stiles sets his coffee mug down. It’s emptied. “I, uh, actually start work back up the day after tomorrow,” he says, clearing his throat.

Derek stares across the table at him, all of him, and feels-- nothing.

*

The dreams have always been erotic, but there was always something so _tender_ to them that Derek assumed it had to be a love match. That his soulmate would kiss his neck and back and pull their fingers through his hair because they _loved_ him.

It’s possible, he realizes with a growing sense of dread as he watches Stiles write out his tip for the waitress, his long, bony fingers wrapped around a pen and his teeth worrying his bottom lip and everything about him both lean and strong, that it could be lust, not love, behind those touches. Maybe, if Stiles is that way with his flings. It’s possible. They could be an erotic match.

 _Well,_ he thinks, mirroring Stiles when he gets to his feet, miserable and on the verge of something like panic, _okay, then_.

*

They’re walking back towards wherever Stiles is parked--

(“Just a few blocks up from the movie theater, not far, I swear,” he’d said. Then, to Derek’s horror: “You don’t have to-- I can take it from here, if you want?” 

Derek had at least managed to shake his head and insist on walking with Stiles while adjusting his worldview to fit with this new knowledge of what Stiles could mean to him. At least he’d managed that much.) 

\-- and Stiles is a few paces ahead of Derek, hands in his pockets, humming.

Derek hasn’t been able to make conversation all night, but he thinks he’d be able to kiss Stiles, anyway. Just press him up against the dirty brick wall they’re passing and open him right up. He’d be good at it, too, Stiles-- a mouth like that, there’s no way he hasn’t figured out how to use it by now.

And he hates it, hates that that’s what he wants the first night he’s with his soulmate, really with him. He’d never even _considered_ being an erotic match because he’s never felt capable of lusting without the possibility of someday loving, not really. And yet.

Stiles turns a bit in his step, just enough to face Derek; they’re closer, now, and Derek is too tired and too frustrated to answer the look he gets, too tired to offer up explanations or apologies. But his body has a mind of its own, and, before he’s fully aware of what he’s doing, he’s reaching out, fingers extending, and he’s curling his hand around the back of Stiles’s neck.

When he touches him, Stiles jerks like he’s been struck, but then he melts, too, just sagging against Derek’s hold. One minute they’re quiet, tethered to each other only by Derek’s fingers against the nape of Stiles’s neck, the next--

The next Derek is walking Stiles backwards, getting him up against the wall, his hand cupping the back of Stiles’s neck as he kisses the hell out of him, coaxes that full mouth open with lips and tongue and tastes him. Stiles is a live wire under his hands, going from still to frantic in no time flat, curling his arms under Derek’s so he can claw at Derek’s back, fist up Derek’s suit jacket and wrinkle it further, tug him closer and surge against him.

He’s vibrating out of his skin, or it feels like it at least, until Derek starts to rub soothing little circles behind Stiles’s ear with his thumb. Stiles shuffles closer, opens his mouth wider, sighs a soft little sound into Derek’s mouth that Derek chases off his tongue. If having Stiles wild against him felt good, the slow come down from that into something gentle and soft is _addictive_. So Derek finds one of Stiles’s hands, takes it in his own, and pins it to the wall by Stiles’s head, laces their fingers together, and holds on.

Stiles goes softer, still, sucks sweetly on Derek’s tongue and makes a high noise in the back of his throat. When Derek pulls away for a moment to rest his forehead against Stiles’s, Stiles keeps his eyes closed, his wet mouth open, and Derek watches him come to awareness slowly, his eyelashes heavy over his heady gaze, and when he arches back up, seeking Derek’s mouth again, Derek is powerless to deny him what he wants.

And it’d be okay, he tries to convince himself, to have Stiles just like this-- just kissing and touching, probably fucking. It could be good, and it clearly satisfies something primal inside of Derek, too, so maybe--

“Oh, oh no,” Stiles groans, wrenching his mouth away and staggering a bit in Derek’s arms. Derek looks at him quizzically, concerned and too tired to figure out anything Stiles is trying to tell him. Stiles looks at him and says, weakly, with a trembling voice, “I don’t think we were supposed to do that yet.”

“What do you--” Derek asks, but he’s interrupted when Stiles ducks to the side and proceeds to vomit all over the sidewalk and the back of Derek’s leg.

*

It’s a good thing LA isn’t a particularly clean city, Derek thinks grumpily as he uses a discarded newspaper off the side of the road to wipe as much excess vomit off his pants as possible. Beside him, where he’s sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, is Stiles, who is hunched over and moaning miserably, inconsolable with a mix of the Shakes and, probably, embarrassment.

“Shakes,” Stiles says, his voice raw.

Derek says, “I’d guessed.”

Stiles nods. “I mean, that’s-- good?”

And, as bad as Derek feels for Stiles-- who’s probably going to be suffering through the side effects of this for anywhere between two to forty-eight hours-- he’s also so hugely relieved that they’re not a lust bond that he thinks he might cry. He’s exhausted enough that it could happen.

“I’m sorry,” he say, stiff, and Stiles laughs without any humor.

“Don’t be, man. It wouldn’t be my love life if it weren’t completely embarrassing.”

Derek frowns. He doesn’t know what to say to that, but Stiles looks pathetic where he’s slouched against a mail drop box, rubbing at his chest like he’s got heartburn. It’s instinct or maybe something a little like the beginnings of a bond, if Derek’s being romantic and optimistic, that makes Derek put his hand between Stiles’s shoulder blades and rub. Stiles makes a small, pleased noise in his chest.

“That’s so much better, oh my god how are you doing that,” he says in a rush.

Which is hilarious that he thinks Derek’s doing _anything_ since Derek has no idea what’s going on. A month ago he didn’t even know the word _Stiles_ existed. Now Stiles is here, under his hand, real and touchable and _his_ , in at least some capacity, and Derek is--

Excited? _Terrified_? Out of his depth?

All of the above, really.

They sit quietly while Derek gingerly rubs Stiles’s back and Stiles slouches against the mailbox for several long minutes until he inches closer to Derek and bends himself in half to encourage Derek to take full sweeps over his arched back.

“Yohr zha behst,” Stiles wheezes into his knees.

“You have to say that,” Derek reminds him.

Stiles’s laugh is clipped, the way he’s curled over himself. “Yeah, well.”

And they’re quiet again.

For a while.

A long while.

Eventually, Stiles lifts his head and blinks groggily back at Derek. His expression is twisted into something sad and he rubs his hand over his shorn hair, averts his eyes, and says, “So, uh, I’m going home today, you know.”

Derek nods; he’d figured as much when Stiles said he had work soon.

“Sorry, I know this is, like, the shittiest timing ever--”

“It’s fine,” Derek says. “We can figure it out.”

It’s the most confident he’s sounded all night, which is hilarious because it’s the thing he’s the least certain of in all of this, has been since the beginning, since that paparazzo pulled his shirt down and took a picture of his soulmark for the world to see.

Stiles squints at him, doubtful.

“We can,” Derek repeats, firm.

Stiles looks at him some more until he finds whatever he’s looking for in Derek’s expression. Then a smirk crosses his face. “You _have_ to say that,” he parrots, cheeky.

Derek can’t help it; he smiles back. “Maybe.”

Stiles sits there, smiling at Derek with his head pillowed on his bent knees, his long arms wrapped around himself and his fingers curled around his elbows. Looking at him is like looking at the sun-- beautiful and painful in equal turn.

Stiles coughs, breaking the moment, and says, “Alright, cool. Now back away, I think I’m gonna yack again.” 

*

They sit on the curb until Stiles feels well enough to drive, then they finish the walk to his car quietly. The air is thick and heavy around them, and behind them the sun is creeping up over the horizon and painting the sky in streaks of pink and orange.

Stiles stops near a pale blue Jeep that Derek eyes warily. It looks older than both of them.

“Don’t look at him like that,” Stiles says, eyes on Derek, scowling. “Roscoe’s my boy.” He pats the back bumper affectionately; the car groans under the press of his hand, which only makes Derek more concerned.

Stiles flushes to his ears but keeps his chin held high.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Derek asks.

“Yeah, totally,” Stiles says, nodding enthusiastically. “Scott’s gonna drive us home, I just have to get back to the motel and pack. And also stop moving my head, ow, Jesus.” 

That doesn’t do much to make Derek feel better about letting his soulmate drive around with the Shakes, but Stiles looks like he’s made up his mind, and Derek’s not sure how to offer him a ride without it being-- weird.

Not that anything about their relationship has been _not_ weird so far, or even that Stiles himself is not weird, but. Still.

He nods stiffly and catches the door when Stiles yanks it open and waits, uncertain, as Stiles hauls himself into the body of the Jeep and gets settled. He’s all long legs, sharp elbows, and muscle memory, no grace even though the movement is obviously practiced. And something uncomfortably warm blossoms in Derek’s chest, maybe, looking at Stiles in the cab of his car, running a hand absentmindedly over his shorn hair and staring back at Derek in the early morning light.

“This was-- fun? Can I say it was fun?” Stiles asks. He looks as tired as Derek feels, finally. It just took vomiting on the side of the road for an hour and a half to wear him down that far. “Probably not, but I’m glad, anyway.”

Derek blinks at him. He still has the driver’s side door in his hands. It whines when he shifts his grip. Stiles driving or riding back to some suburb outside of San Francisco in a death trap like this makes Derek’s skin crawl, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight it at this point.

“Be careful,” Derek tells him.

Stiles squints at him. “You’re kind of an ass, aren't you?"

Derek frowns at him. "I--"

“No, it’s cool,” he’s putting the keys in the ignition, a smirk taking over his face. “Believe me, I’m into it.”

It’s so candid that Derek doesn’t know what to do with that statement, so he just stands there, awkwardly holding the door of Stiles’s car, wondering what to do next.

Stiles holds his hand out, palm up. “Can I ?”

His fingers are long and skinny, calloused in a few places, his knuckles-- Derek blinks himself out of being distracted by them, looks up at Stiles with a question on his lips.

“Your phone?” Stiles clarifies. “I mean, I thought we’d, you know, maybe--”

Derek has his phone out and in Stiles’s hand before he can finish stumbling through the thought. Stiles’s fingers close around it and his face twists into a frown.

“I’m telling you right now, dude,” he’s saying, even as he’s thumbing through to add his contact information, “if you want this to work, you need to think about moving over to an Android.”

Derek’s provider is Verizon; he doesn’t know what Android’s plans are, but he’s--

“I mean, at least you’re on Windows and not an iPhone, I guess,” Stiles is saying, then he’s plastering a smile on his face and there’s a flash. A few thumb-punches later and Stiles is giving Derek’s phone back. Their fingers brush, and Stiles’s skin is cool, kind of clammy. “Thanks for the roadside assistance with the, uh--” he flaps a hand between them and then says, “and sorry about your pants. I’d say send me the bill, but I’m not even going to pretend I could cover those.”

“It’s fine,” Derek says, though he meant to say it after Stiles’s thank you, it just took a few seconds too long for his brain to catch up. “Don’t worry about them. I have others.”

”More than one pair of velvet pants? I’m jealous,” Stiles teases, and he’s grinning at Derek. It’s sleepy and small, but his eyes are bright in the morning light.

Derek closes the door. Stiles uses the manual crank to roll down the window.

“Be careful,” Derek repeats, means it. 

“Hey, I didn’t come here just to meet you, okay,” Stiles assures him, turning his key in the ignition and bringing the engine to life. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. You’re stuck with me, no take backs.”

And Derek, shockingly, laughs. It’s weak and pretty choked off, but it’s real and the hope blossoming behind it is real and it’s-- god, he’s so tired, but he wants to stand here with Stiles for hours, just encourage that sleepy grin out of him, maybe kiss him again, gently, once he smells less like vomit.

“You should look into upgrading your texting plan,” Stiles says, working the gear shift into reverse. Then he’s taking off, pulling out of the spot and heading off down the street back to his motel. 

Go figure his soulmate would be a texter, Derek thinks, rolling his eyes and reorienting himself in by the light of day to make his way back home.

***

“I got you some crackers,” Scott says, tossing the box at Stiles, who catches it clumsily against his chest. 

“Did you ever know that you’re my hero?” Stiles asks him, earnest. “You’re everything I wish I could be.”

“Yeah, whatever, eat your crackers,” Scott huffs, rolling his eyes, but Stiles isn’t fooled. They don’t talk about the time Stiles caught Scott crying over a Bette Midler Youtube Playlist, halfway through his third bag of Doritos in the middle of his post-Allison highathalon, but Stiles hasn’t forgotten.

Malia hip checks Scott in a scramble to climb into the back of the Jeep with Stiles, who groans and kicks at her. “I’m _suffering_ , leave me _alone_ ,” he whines.

“Yeah-- suffering from _the Shakes,_ ” she says, picking up his socked feet and setting them aside despite his complaining. “Did you seriously think I wouldn’t spend this whole trip harassing you about it?”

“I had _hoped_.”

Scott climbs up front and wakes up the engine, sets up his snack smorgasbord in the front seat for easy access, and, with a mouthful of pretzels, starts their trip back. The appeal of the back seat had been that Stiles could stretch out, curl up, be comfortable and maybe, hopefully, asleep for the ride back.

With Malia taking up half his intended space, though, he’s just getting jostled around and reminded of his nausea and vertigo. He rips into the plastic sleeve of crackers with his teeth, shoves a handful of them into his mouth and glares at Malia over a spewing of crumbs.

She scrunches her face up at him. “Charming,” she sneers.

He grins back meanly, getting a sick satisfaction out of seeing crumbs fly out and catch in her curls. She punches him in the ribs-- _hard_.

“Oomph--” he chokes out, coughing out his chewed up cracker onto the floor. “Jesus _Christ_ , Malia,” he snaps.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” she hisses back.

“Cut it out you two,” Scott interrupts from the driver’s seat. “Don’t make me pull this car over.”

Stiles covers his face with his hands and groans.

*

The Shakes are a soulmate phenomenon that, frankly, baffle the scientific community. Religious zealots see it as a punishment for going against God’s will or whatever, but there’s no hard evidence for what they are or why they happen, and there’s little to no consistency amongst soulmate sets or even within individual soulmate matches.

The general consensus, however, is that you get the Shakes when you stress your soulmate bond. Cases of the Shakes are reported most often amongst platonic bonds that are taken into romantic territory and, like in Stiles’s case, when love matches rush too quickly into physical intimacy.

Which is a little disappointing since Stiles’s soulmate is hot like burning-- more so, even, in person, when he’s clearly exhausted and doing his best to keep up with Stiles and being _concerned_ but also awkward as hell and--

It’s also a relief, in a way. Takes away the whole “performance anxiety” aspect off the table for a while. Stiles has never been happier to not be having sex.

He spends most of the ride home letting his head loll against the headrest of his seat and deflecting Malia’s increasingly invasive questions with crude jokes and glares. She gets bored of the charade after about an hour and ends up rubbing the back of his neck mindlessly as she plays DOTS on her phone, humming along with Scott’s music choices and passing Stiles sleeves of crackers when he groans and reaches for them.

The whole way home he’s hyperaware of the weight of his phone in his pocket, the potential of having Derek’s number now, of being able to reach him anytime he wants. It’s empowering and terrifying and he drafts dozens of first texts in his head before they get home.

“Casa Stilinski,” Scott announces, pulling into a spot outside of Stiles’s complex, next to his motorbike and Malia’s little pick-up truck.

“ _Finally,_ ” Malia groans, throwing open her door and hopping out onto the pavement. She’s been extra cranky for the last three days, presumably because the distance between her and Liam was catching up with her. 

Scott hops out of Roscoe and dusts his fingers off on his jeans. Then, carefully, he helps pull Stiles out of the back seat, and his hands stay steady and comforting on his back and shoulders while Stiles stumbles out, cracker crumbs scattering across the pavement.

“Everything’s spinny again,” Stiles groans, burying his face in Scott’s shoulder. 

Scott curls a hand around the back of his neck. “Do you need help getting upstairs?”

“Yes, please.”

He throws an arm around Scott and lets Scott take his weight as they’ve done on dozens of Thirsty Thursdays before. Together they hobble their way into Stiles’s apartment complex and up the two flights of stairs to his unit. 

“Crackers,” Scott tells him, shoving the remnants of the box into his hands once they’re at his doorstep. “And water. Drink lots of water, eat lots of crackers. Don’t throw up.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Stiles drawls.

Scott pinches his cheek. “I’d be a good mom,” he says with a grin.

“Damn straight.”

They stand on his “Hi. I’m Mat.” doormat and grin at each other, Scott’s hand on Stiles’s shoulder and the box of crackers clutched to Stiles’s chest.

“I told Mom I’d make dinner, so,” he says eventually.

And Stiles waves him off. “Go, go. Do your good son shtick. Smell you later.”

“More like smell _you_ later. Seriously, take a shower, you smell like barf.”

“I’ll think about you while I’m sudding up!” Stiles calls down the corridor at Scott’s retreating back.

“You always do!” Scott hollers back, not even turning around.

*

His apartment is exactly the way he left it two weeks ago: assorted dishes laid out on the drying rack on the counter, lights off, blinds closed, and nothing but dust bunnies and the quiet to greet him when he slips inside.

“Honey, I’m home,” he says to the TV.

*

“So,” his dad greets later that night, “how was it?”

Stiles burns his fingers on his Hot Pocket trying to get it out of the microwave. “ _Ow,_ crap, ow, hold on, Dad, just a second.”

It says a lot about him, probably, that his dad just sighs and waits until Stiles gets his hand under a stream of cold water. In the silence that stretches between them, however, he finds it hard to answer his dad’s question.

He’s been wondering the same thing ever since he got back from LA, honestly. 

Derek had been-- totally exhausted, there at the end, sorta scowly, and almost as out of his depth as Stiles was. Stiles had been braced for him to be beautiful, which he was, but he hadn’t been prepared for the direct way Derek spoke to him or the glare he’d leveled on the waitress when she’d tried to help clean up Stiles’s coffee spill or the way his hand felt against Stiles’s back, soothing the Shakes as they rattled his bones.

Derek was something else, and Stiles had no idea if he could say that the trip to LA had been a success or not. On one hand, he’d managed to meet Derek and had gotten Derek to recognize what they were; on the other hand, he’d left town with the Shakes after trying to climb Derek like a tree at four in the morning and vomiting all over his pants. So.

“Well, you know,” he hedges eventually.

“Actually, I don’t,” his dad sighs, sounding put upon. “Hence why I asked.”

“But you do know that I’m bad at first impressions, right?” Stiles leans back against the countertop, hand still stretched out under the running faucet as he speaks. “I guess it went alright. I _hope_ it went alright.”

“Considering your master plan was to stalk him--”

“Get close to him, Dad, we talked about this--”

“I’m just relieved you’re not calling me from a holding cell.”

Of course, Lydia had _threatened_ , so maybe his dad has a point. That doesn’t stop Stiles from being indignant.

“Hey! I’m _charming,_ ” he says. Even his dad’s silence manages to be judgmental. “I _can be_ charming.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

“When was the last time you went to the optometrist again?”

“Alright, let’s not pick on your old man. I just wanted to know how your trip went and when I can expect you for dinner this week. I didn’t sign up to be hassled.”

“The great thing about my hassling, Dad, is that you don’t have to sign up for it. It’s complimentary.”

Again with the judging silences, yeesh.

“Thursday sound good?” he asks after a beat.

“Thursday sounds great.” He can picture his dad’s smile in his voice, and it makes his heart ache for his presence. “See you then. And son?”

“Yeah, Pops?”

“Try not to force it. These things tend to turn out exactly the way they’re supposed to. Pushing won’t get you anywhere this time.”

Stiles swallows. He’d be lying if he tried to say he _hadn’t_ been thinking about that for a while now, wondering just how far the limits of predestination went and at what point he could bend the rules to his liking.

“Noted,” he says. 

“Alright. Well then. I’m gonna go now. You be good.”

“Hey, I’m always good.” There’s a snort on the other end of the line. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. Love you, take care of yourself, see you Thursday, et cetera.” 

“Uh huh, et cetera you, too.”

*

That night, he lays awake in bed, still nauseated, and stares at the text message he sent himself from Derek’s phone, at the 10 digit mobile number that means _Derek_. Ten digits that will connect him right through to Derek’s shitty Windows 8 phone, with its default Verizon Wireless Red tiles and Instagram _Beta_. They’ll have to talk about that, if they’re going to really pull off this soulmate thing. Stiles has cell phone opinions, and if Derek doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life squabbling, he’d give in now rather than later.

In the dark of his room, Stiles squints at the backlight of his cellphone, at those ten digits he’s yet to put into his contacts, and he thinks, _I’d really like to pull this off_.

He adds Derek’s number to his phone as just _Derek_ first but it’s so weird he has to go back and edit it to _Derek Hale (holy shit)_. Then, with the last of his energy, he drafts a text before he can talk himself out of it and sends it off:

_You probably don’t remember mom-ing the crap out of me because you’d hit like Defcon-2 levels of  
sleep deprivation, but just in case. I got home ok_

Derek’s reply is nearly immediate, and it’s straight to the point:

_Good._

Stiles snorts. “God, what a freaking dweeb,” he says to himself, a sleepy smile on his face and his voice warm and fond.

*

Stiles becomes aware of the dream midkiss, and he opens his eyes slowly, ready to see Derek against the stark white world he's become so familiar with. Instead, he finds the familiar four walls of his room, and Derek's across from him on his bed, the two of them sitting cross-legged, barefoot, shirtless.

"This is cute," Stiles says, looking around. There's still a certain vagueness about the room that tells him he's definitely dreaming, but it's-- it's nice, seeing Derek here. "I like you in my bed."

"Is that where I am," Derek deadpans, opening his eyes and leveling a flat look on Stiles. 

He has a little, annoyed crease between his eyes. Stiles wants to press his fingers to it, so he does. It's his dream, he can do what he wants, and what he wants to do is marvel at how quickly Derek seems to have become a real person in Stiles’s dreams. One conversation and-- now, here he is, more real than he's ever been before.

More irritable, too, since Derek grabs his wrist and pulls Stiles’s hand away with a bitchy look on his face. The hold would hurt if he tried that in the real world, but here the feel of Derek’s hand is secondary to the look on his face and the fact that he's here.

"Don't be a jerk," Stiles tells him. "I'm your soulmate, c’mon, you should appreciate me more."

"Appreciate you," Derek mutters darkly, and he gives Stiles this look before tugging his forearm, dragging Stiles across the space between them and into Derek's lap. Stiles gapes at him, torn between offended, indignant, and overwhelmingly aroused. "I can do that," Derek says, his mouth coming down on on Stiles's wrist in a searing open-mouthed kiss.

Derek's legs are still crossed, and Stiles is definitely too big to be cradled there easily-- his legs and arms too long and his ass too bony for it to be anything but uncomfortable. But Derek takes his weight easily, and he kisses his way down Stiles's forearm, every ghost of his hot, wet breath like a jolt to Stiles's system.

He squirms, ticklish and unnerved under Derek's attention.

"Hey, cut it out," he says, voice wobbly as he wriggles, and Derek takes his mouth away, his lips twisted into a smug little smirk.

"I thought you wanted to feel appreciated," he says, teasing, and Stiles can't handle that look on his face, so he clambers to his knees and shoves Derek down, on his back, uses his body to knock Derek's legs open.

Derek's expression is carefully neutral, but his brows are raised a little, and his gaze drags down Stiles's body. Stiles feels it like a physical touch. It makes him feel powerful.

Derek must catch his satisfied look because he rolls his eyes. "What," he asks, flat.

"Just thinking about other ways I could feel appreciated," Stiles says, smooth as could be as he makes his way up, plants himself with his knees on either side of Derek's body, just under his armpits, settling his weight down a little bit. "If you’re up to it."

"I don't know, I'm pretty tired."

Stiles takes Derek's hand and presses a kiss to the middle of his open palm. Derek's expression goes dark, and Stiles hums. "Good thing this is a dream, then, eh?"

"Yeah," Derek breathes.

There's a scrambling, then, when both of their hands go to Stiles's zipper, and the dream swallows some time-- as dreams are wont to do-- and the next thing Stiles is aware of is Derek, ducking down, shimmying his shoulders and getting his mouth around the head of Stiles's dick.

"H-- _oooly_ Mother of God," Stiles chokes.

Derek's eyelashes flutter shut. He tries to lean forward to take more of Stiles down, but his neck can't bend like that-- not even in Stiles's dreams. He makes an aggravated noise and looks up, meeting Stiles's eyes with a glare.

"Hey, don't give me that look," Stiles says as he wraps a hand around the base of his dick and leans into the warmth of Derek's mouth, the slide easy as anything. Derek closes his eyes again and huffs.

Stiles rolls his hips tentatively, thrusting down into Derek's mouth, his hand a vise around the base of his dick. A breath could end this for him, and he hasn't had nearly enough of Derek's mouth to want that yet.

"How do you always feel so fucking good?" Stiles asks, drawing back and pushing in again, again, again. "Like you were made for me."

In the dream, there's no sound of Stiles's dick sliding between Derek's lips, of the pops and smacks of Derek's spit against his cockhead when Stiles slides all the way out and brushes against Derek's cheek. All there is is quiet, and the voice in Stiles's head screaming _He_ was _made for you. He's yours, he's yours, he's yours._

Which-- granted, is probably a really fucked up way to feel about someone Stiles has had one extremely uncomfortable, broken, awkward conversation with, but he's been thinking this for weeks now. There's no holding it back in his dreams, as he's fucking Derek's beautiful mouth, watching as Derek gives him exactly what he needs.

He's spent his whole life waiting to meet the person who would be his, and he's been waiting his whole life to meet the person who would have him. Now here he is, barely more than a figment of Stiles's imagination but still so fucking beautiful against Stiles's hunter green sheets, letting Stiles sink into the heat of his throat and blinking back tears when Stiles pauses, lingers there, and feels it.

Coming is like an afterthought, now, and it's triggered by the look of Derek's face when Stiles pulls out of his throat and goes back to careful rolls of his dick on Derek's tongue-- the flush of Derek's cheeks under his stubble, the heavy eyelids over his teary eyes, the swollen look of his lips while they're still wrapped around Stiles's cock. He tries to pull his cock out to catch it, to keep from choking Derek or making him swallow with his abused throat, but all he manages to do is make a mess-- come on Derek's tongue and lips and chin, dripping down his neck, the last of it smearing across their soulmark on Derek's collarbone. Stiles holds himself through it, groaning and cussing.

Derek looks at him with his cheeks still red, his mouth even redder, and smirks. "See?" he asks, and Jesus, he's cute when he's being a pain in the ass. "I appreciate you."

Stiles looks down at him, surprised. He’s never stayed in one of these dreams past his orgasm, but he’s willing to go with it. "I'm going to make you come so hard you hurt yourself, smart ass," he promises.

Derek stretches out underneath him, looking like an offering on Stiles's bed. His pants are still on. Stiles plans to take care of that immediately. "Whenever you're ready," Derek tells him, and Stiles, his grin sharp, has never been more ready in his entire fucking life.

He kisses Derek once, twice-- deep enough to taste himself. Derek still has come on his chin; Stiles ignores it, leaves it right where it is, and drops long, wet kisses to every inch of Derek on his way down, down, down.

***

Four hundred miles south of Beacon Hills, Derek jerks awake with a wounded noise, coming in his pants before he even realizes he's conscious.

He can still feel the ghost of Stiles's fingers buried knuckle deep inside of him, the sweet way they'd grazed his prostate, making Derek come and wake up in one cruel twist.

In Los Angeles, alone in his bed, Derek feels the absence of Stiles like a phantom limb. He reaches for him in the dusty sunlight streaming in through the high window of his room, but the feeling of Stiles-- and the sound of his voice and the press of his fingers and the curve of his body-- slips away between one breath and the next, fading into air, the last little glimpses of Derek's dream gone as the day breaks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a monster; it took me the better part of three months to write and edit it, but i'm ultimately very proud of what it is. a few notes before you jump into it:
> 
>  
> 
> 1\. there's content in this chapter that features a character (deliberately, knowingly, for the purpose of 'costuming' oneself) wearing an urban outfitter's-esque "native american war bonnet" when she is white and has no ties whatsoever to the cultural and spiritual weight and meaning of it; she is unhappy with wearing it but does so to maintain 'character', and everyone around her comments negatively about it because it is recognizably not-okay for her to be doing that. depending on your own perception this could be taken as anywhere between mildly annoying behavior to culturally appropriative to blatantly racist. i did my best to frame the narrative as disapproving of what's happening, but if i dropped the ball at all please let me know. 
> 
>  
> 
> 2\. stiles's halloween outfit of choice is a deliberate lift from chris hardwick of @midnight; i had other plans but then i saw this one and just couldn't see anything better whoops
> 
>  
> 
> 3\. the 5 hour party in which people wear togas and nothing is played all night except for remixes of AWOLNATION's "sail"??? is a very real experience a dear friend of mine suffered through for me. bless her trials and tribulations as they inspired quite a lot of my good humor going through this horrifically long chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> 4\. thank you to my beta izzie, my roommate emily, and my pal lizz for providing me with emotional support and helping me through the many, many, many obstacles this chapter presented to me. it's because of them that this chapter even exists and makes sense at all-- any remaining errors are fully my own. i also lifted a few formatting things for this chapter from the BRILLIANT AND INSPIRATIONAL pyes, who is essentially my north star when i'm trying to write fanfiction for teen wolf.
> 
>  
> 
> 5\. i'd also like to thank anyone who, over the last few months, took the time and energy to send me positive feedback and kind words of encouragement as i was writing this. i can't tell you how much you all helped me through this and how heavily i relied on the things you said to keep pushing forward. i appreciate you all more than you will ever know! i hope this chapter is everything you wanted and more, in the end.

  

  

  

### AUGUST

> _“-- and of course, there’s been a lot of speculation about Derek Hale over the years, especially after he and his long-time girlfriend and co-star BRAE split. People found themselves asking_ what just happened? _Are we watching a bonded pair fall apart, or were they never even soulmates to begin with?_
> 
> _“There’s been a lot of debate about it, so it’s not surprising at all that the world is as interested in Derek Hale’s soulmark as it is. For the past ten years, with the exception of a few rumors around his previous girlfriends, he’s been known as sort of a hermit. The public doesn’t see a lot of him outside of official interviews and conventions, occasional movie premieres, and the rare social event._
> 
> _“But the world has watched him grow up over the last ten years through the_ Diamond Interchange _films, and they’ve wanted to know more for a long, long time now. Gorgeous man like that, who could blame them, right? And there’s always been a sort of taboo on publishing soulmark photos-- across the industry, that’s something you just. Don’t. See. So it’s all very edgy and new. It’s exciting, isn’t it?_
> 
> _“It was only a matter of time before it happened, of course, and the fact that it happened to Derek Hale, of all people… It was a perfect storm, and now the nation’s hooked. Everyone wants to know more-- we’re all invested now. Seeing someone’s soulmark is a remarkable thing. People can’t be expected to just walk away from that.”_
> 
> _“Absolutely. I’d love to keep talking to you about this, Dr. Valack-- it’s not every day we have the foremost soulmark expert in the Western World our show! Do you think you could stick around for a little while longer, for the online crowd? I’d love to hear your opinion on the platoni-romantic bond Derek Hale’s younger sister is a part of--”_
> 
> (- from a broadcasted, live debate held on _The Every-Night Show_ on August 13, 2014)

***

Between takes at work, Derek helps himself to a Sprite and some trail mix while thumbing through the call history on his phone. It’s comprised almost entirely of Lydia, who calls him at least three times a day to get everything she needs in order. There are a few lines that read _Boyd_ and _Cora_ and _Kira_ , too, but they’re few and far between. Cora and Kira prefer communicating through text messages, and if Boyd needs him Cora can usually be counted on to send Derek a text about that too.

He pauses when he finds what he’s looking for-- a line dated almost a month and a half ago for a call that lasted a minute and sixteen seconds. It reads _Mom_.

Something twists in his gut when he sees it; he hadn’t thought it’d been over a _month_ since he last spoke to his mother. Jesus. For the most part, they’re a pretty close family-- but Derek’s work keeps him busy, and his mom has always understood that, never pushed or prodded for more attention from him.

Suddenly Erica is in front of him, tilting his head back and wielding a brush at him. “Chin up,” she says, “you’re going back out there in ten minutes.”

“How do you know this when I don’t,” Derek asks, voice flat.

“Hmm,” she says.

Nine minutes later she gives him a nod and steps back. Ordinarily, she gets self-congratulatory when she likes what she sees, but today she just gives him a small smile and slips away to tend to Boyd. From his seat, Derek can see Boyd turn to her, his face cracking open on a wide grin. The air between them is more than just familiar-- it’s adoring.

Seeing them together always makes Derek feel like he’s intruding, so he turns back to his phone and sends a text to his mother.

  
**Are you busy this week?**

“Actors-- where are my actors?” Finstock shouts.

And maybe she doesn’t press him or push him, but the speed with which his mom returns his text makes him think, maybe, she’s been waiting for it for a while.

**Honey, what do you think “retired” means?**  
 **Of course I’m not busy.**  
 **Fifteen minutes away from strangling mister next-door with the mandolin he’s taken up?**  
 **Absolutely.**  
 **But busy?**  
 **Never again!**

While ordinarily Derek considers his mother prone to hyperbole, there are few things he knows her to hate-- truly hate-- more than bluegrass. Finstock is screeching like a banshee in the middle of set, so Derek’s on borrowed time when he shoots back a response.

**Have to work now but I want to see yo usoon**

No sooner has Derek sent the text off than Finstock is smacking the phone out of his hands. He’s fuming-- eyes wide, nostrils flaring-- and invading Derek’s personal space without second thought. He’s close enough that Derek can make out beads of sweat forming on the bridge of his nose, over his eyebrow and above his upper lip. 

Derek blanches and feels his stomach dropping into his gut; his suddenly dry throat sticks when he tries to swallow.

They stand in an impasse for a few seconds, Finstock’s breath hot on his face. Everyone within a twenty-five foot radius stops to watch for the inevitable tirade. Finstock isn’t exactly renowned for being able to keep his cool; his tendency to fly off the handle lends itself well to directing over-the-top action films, but it’s lead to some pretty notorious breakdowns on set. He made the kid playing Derek’s character’s nephew cry more than once while filming the fourth movie. It hadn’t surprised anyone when the character had been written out entirely before the franchise started spinning for the fifth film.

Last Derek saw, Jared was working on the American version of _Misfits_. He seemed a lot happier. When he saw the promos Derek thought, _Good for him_. 

Derek’s not much of a crier, himself. He’s been working with Finstock for a long enough time to feel pretty secure in his job, but he’s not immune to the intimidating glare that’s turned on him either. He braces himself for a barrage of shouted insults.

The tension in the room crescendos, thick enough to slice with a butter knife. 

But Finstock just snaps, “Get your ass on set, Hale,” and turns away, leaving Derek bewildered, his jaw slack, unable to move until Erica puts her hands on his shoulder blades and shoves him.

*

Though he had told Derek to look into updating his phone plan, Stiles doesn’t break the awkward radio silence that settles between them after he leaves town. Derek spends most of Monday and Tuesday night drafting and trashing messages to Stiles, getting increasingly frustrated that he doesn’t seem to be taking any initiative in return.

Lydia shows up at his place at the break of dawn on Wednesday, and Derek lays awake in his bed listening to her heels click-click-click across the laminated wood laid out in his kitchenette. He hears her rifling around in his cabinets for something one minute, running water from his sink the next, and, sure enough, not even ten minutes later he smells coffee brewing.

Judging by the clanking and grinding noises that woke him up initially, Lydia-- who has more degrees than any one person Derek knows, yet somehow finds more satisfaction in bossing people around in Hollywood than in academia-- has pulled out the beast of an espresso machine she got him for Christmas two years ago. Incidentally, she’s the only person who knows how to work the damn thing. 

It probably requires a degree to operate, Derek thinks ruefully.

He’s sleepy and warm and he doesn’t want to do official photo shoots or “behind the scenes” interviews for sixteen hours straight. What he wants is to go back to sleep and-- if he’s being completely honest-- find Stiles waiting for him on the other side of consciousness. The person in Derek’s mind is an imperfect, hasty sketch of the real Stiles in its wit and manners, but it’s _something_.

It’s barely been four days, but his body feels Stiles’s absence like a stomach ache. Derek misses him constantly-- even while sleeping, since he hasn’t had a single dream of Stiles since the one painfully perfect dream he had just after Stiles left town. Thinking about it makes Derek’s chest tighten; it’s impossible for him not to see it as Stiles drawing away from him in sleep just as he has through texting, impossible for him not to see it as an outright rejection of their bond. The stomach-aching longing worsens, threatening to drag him under in full.

That way lies madness, though, so for now Derek swallows his misery and rolls over, buries his face under his pillow, and makes himself go back to sleep until Lydia inevitably comes for him.

*

A sixteen hour call day is never fun, but having his attention split between the photographs he’s supposed to be posing for, the questions he’s supposed to be answering in interviews, and _Stiles_ only makes it worse. Derek spends most of the day in a haze, checking his phone every chance he gets and stressing about it every time he sees no unread messages waiting for him.

“Then _you_ text _him_ ,” is what Lydia tells him at the end of the day when both of them, exhausted, have collapsed on his couch. He turns a flat look on her. “What?” she asks. “You’ll survive starting _one_ text conversation in your life, believe me.”

“How do you know I haven’t already texted him?”

Lydia wouldn’t do anything so inelegant as snorting, but the noise she makes is pretty close.

“Derek,” she asks, sounding reasonable, “when was the last time you started a text conversation with your own _mother_?” 

Derek smirks at her. “Yesterday.”

Lydia looks unimpressed. “And before that?”

Which is dirty pool and she _knows_ it, but Derek’s not going to give her the satisfaction of hearing how long it was. It’s unnecessary, anyway, because she leans back and props her feet up in Derek’s lap like her point’s been proven, already flipping through an audition script that got passed to Derek when they stopped into Marin’s office earlier, between two of his shoots.

“Is this a _romance_?” she asks suddenly, jerking up. “Did Marin give you a _romance_?” 

“It’s not the lead part,” he says, trying to be casual but probably missing by a mile. He has to look back at the TV to avoid the scrutinizing look she casts his way. “No-- kissing. Or anything.”

She relaxes a little, her shoulders slumping again, and he curls his hands around her ankles, his eyes still on the TV. They’re both thinking the same thing, he’s sure, but he’s not going to be the one to broach the conversation about it.

Now that he and Stiles are tentatively building the bond between them, it will be a while before he can take any role that requires him to be physically affectionate with another person. Probably. Romantic bonds can be stressed easily and, when that happens, Shakes could be the least of Derek’s problems. Loss of time, blackouts, escalations of temper-- all manner of bond-stress side effects have been recorded and studied. There’s no way to really know your own bond’s threshold or the negative effects of stressing it, but some things are generally practiced to protect new bonds.

Some of those practices include absolute fidelity early on in a romantic bond-- which can be nurtured in such a way to accept open relationships-- and exploring non-penetrative acts of sex while developing an erotic bond. There are few customs dictating three-way bonds, because of how astoundingly rare they are, and even fewer regarding hate bonds.

“It’s a shame Stiles isn’t an actor,” Lydia muses, carefully nonchalant while turning a page of the script.

Derek frowns at her, but she keeps her eyes on the script instead of looking back. “Is it?” he asks. It’s left his mouth before he realizes that he genuinely wants to know. She puts the script down and sits up, pulling her legs out of Derek’s lap.

“Well,” she says, looking thoughtful, “that depends on how you look at it. If he were an actor, you could be co-cast and your opportunities wouldn’t be so limited. So, if you’re looking for more varied work, and you don’t want to be married to a fast cars franchise that’s past its prime, then yes, I think it’s a shame.”

Derek sighs. It’s not like he’s suffering from sticking with _Diamond Interchange_. 

“And if I don’t care about the work?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes, the way she always does when they broach this argument-- Lydia having it in her head that Derek could go farther than the _Diamond Interchange_ role and the handful of “generic buff scowling man” roles he’s taken over the years versus Derek who has little to no urge to step outside of his comfort zone. He has no awards or delusions of grandeur; he just wants to enjoy himself.

“Then maybe you two are a match made in dead-end-job heaven,” she huffs, crossing her arms. “And in five years when you’re working on _Diamond Interchange Eight_ and he’s still working in a call center seven hours away, I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

She goes back to flipping through the script with a deceptively bored expression. Derek continues to stare at her, hoping that if he does so long enough it’ll eventually get under her skin and make her cool facade crack, but all she does is kick her feet back into his lap and relax against the armrest of the couch, nonplussed by his soured mood.

“Do me a favor?” she asks. Her eyes flick up to meet his. “Stop moping around already and send him a stupid text. Also, tell your mom I say hi.”

***

Talia Hale slurps up the dregs of her strawberry milkshake while her son gets to the end of his story. To be fair, it’s a very long story. They haven’t been in touch much since Derek’s soulmark was released for the world to see, poor dear. Hand to God, she listened to his every word, but the dark bags under his eyes are concerning, and her son certainly hadn’t been exaggerating earlier when he’d said this place has the best milkshakes in town. Her attention might have wavered, maybe, just a little-- only towards the end.

When she’s finished her shake, Derek and his eyebrows are waiting for her opinion on it all, silent in their judgment. He’s certainly grown into that scowl, but all Talia sees when faced with it is her eight-year-old baby boy standing ominously in her doorway in the middle of the night, silhouetted by the hallway light, saying, completely earnest, “Laura told me she dropped my toothbrush in the toilet before I brushed my teeth with it,” then, his voice shaking, “Am I going to _die_?” 

Presently, she dabs at her lips carefully with a napkin, suppressing the smile that comes every time she thinks about that night.

“Well, did you upgrade your texting plan?” she asks.

Derek rolls his eyes at her, groans, “Mom--”

“Because it hasn’t even been a week yet, and it sounds to me like he’s being _courteous_.” 

He takes a bite of his fruit salad and chews sullenly, drags the bill of his baseball cap down sharper, adjusts the hood of his sweatshirt over the top of his head for the tenth time in half as many minutes. If Talia knows her boy-- and she does, make no mistake-- he’s been stewing over this all the week since his soulmate skipped town without thinking anything but the worst.

“Tell me about Lydia,” she says, popping a crinkle fry into her mouth. “How is she doing? Poor girl, her soulmate’s also all the way up in-- where did you say your Stiles is from again?”

“Beacon Hills.”

“Yes, right, Beacon Hills,” Talia hums. The name is vaguely familiar. She eats another fry while she thinks about it. “That’s near San Francisco, isn’t it?” she asks, and Derek nods. “Darling place, very quiet. I considered retiring there--”

“But you loved the beach too much,” Derek fills in, shaking his head like he’s heard it all before.

But he’s her son, so he’ll suffer through hearing it again. 

“Fifteen miles is simply too far, honey. I’m not about to _drive_ down to the beach. Don’t be silly.”

He rolls his eyes again, and it’s good to see him. So, so good. The past weeks since the media got hold of Derek’s soulmark have been a blur of worry and fury in turn for her, and it had taken a herculean effort not to turn full-on helicopter mom about it all. Cora’s texts have been vaguely reassuring, sure, but nothing compares to seeing Derek across a table from her, looking tired and a little less dejected by the minute, and hearing his side of things.

She’s missed everything about him-- from his bed head to the sandals-with-socks combo she hasn’t been able to break him of since he was eleven and his middle school basketball team picked up the habit. Her little boy is all grown up, now, worried about his soulmate, acting in movies, and looking longingly at the food he’s not allowed to eat as it passes by on its way to other tables. 

Every day she has him is a little miracle. She never forgets that.

“It’s so good to see you, sweetheart,” she says.

He ducks his head, smiling shyly, and says, “You too, Mom.”

They eat their food in comfortable quiet for a while, soaking up the sunshine through the window in the booth Derek picked, enjoying the easy air between them and the simple pleasure of each other’s company.

“You know,” she says when her thoughts begin to wonder, as they are wont to do in the happy moments, “you have your father’s tastes.”

He looks at her, surprised. 

“He would have loved this booth-- this place,” she continues, ignoring the ache in her chest she’s become so familiar with.

“He hated LA,” Derek says, looking out the window at the people passing by. “He’d add a hundred miles to our road trips if it meant avoiding LA.” 

She throws her head back and laughs. “You know how he was about west coast cities. He was a born and bred east coaster when we met. Took us nearly five years to reunite after we were introduced in New York because he was dragging his feet about coming out west and I told him I would sooner face single motherhood than a lifetime in New Jersey. You want to talk about a long distance relationship? Laura was four the first time she met her daddy.”

Derek’s face scrunches up. Even if Talia had failed in everything else, she had at least passed on the right opinion of the East Coast to her kid.

“Looking back, we were a tired old cliché already,” she carries on, looking out the window with Derek, watching people go by, paying no mind to anything beyond the glass they rush past. “But now-- you know how it is. It’s like spending your whole life in a quiet room. Then you meet them and, suddenly, there’s music.”

“Well,” Derek says, smirking, “you and Dad _were_ at a music festival.”

She throws a fry at him. “You’re lucky your father was as smitten with me as he was, you know. Otherwise he’d have listened to his mother, and you’d have been an East Coast baby with her for a grand-momager. How would you feel about that?”

Derek only met his father’s family once-- the weekend of the funeral. Judging by the disgusted look that crosses his face, once was more than enough for him to get the idea.

“What I’m trying to say,” she continues, “is, sure, you need to be patient-- with _him_ , of course-- but don’t confuse patience for laying down and leaving all of life’s big moments up to chance. That boy came and found you, didn’t he?”

Derek nods.

“Then for chrissake, honey!” she cries. “Upgrade your texting plan! It’s 2014, no one makes phone calls anymore!”

Derek blinks, clearly surprised. Since he came to LA, she’s made a point of keeping most of her opinions about his life choices to herself, but, dammit, sometimes a boy needs a mother. And no matter how big and famous Derek has gotten, he’s always going to be her boy. 

“Now,” she says, clearing her throat and getting to her feet, “be a dear and point me to the ladies’ room, please?”

Derek jabs a thumb over his shoulder, apparently too dazed for words. Talia pats the top of his head as she slips past him, smiling when he raises up into her touch.

***

> _“Just a few years ago, Derek Hale’s former co-star and rumored ex-girlfriend Julia Baccari registered her official soulbond to her love match-- Brooklyn-born makeup artist and part-time DJ, kal!grap!-- in the state of California, which kicked up some speculation on the message boards about Hale and his then-girlfriend, singer-turned-actress BRAE._
> 
> _“Neither Julia Baccari nor BRAE have released any official statements regarding Hale’s soulmark photo leak as of yet, but a source tells us that BRAE and Derek were seen together at the_ Aurora _premiere just last Friday night. Meeting so soon after the photos have gone viral-- just over a month out there!-- what could that mean?”_
> 
> ( - from a TMZ.com article published August 16, 2014)

***

On his fifth day back at work after leaving Derek behind in LA, Stiles gets intercepted on his way to his desk by Carrie-- his boss’s secretary-- who leads him into his boss’s office with a smile on her face that doesn’t meet her eyes. The second Friday of the month is stat day, so Stiles has some idea of what to expect when he steps inside and closes the office door behind him.

“Stilinski. You know what I don’t like about you?” Henry asks, reclining in his chair, nudging his nameplate with the toe of his shoe.

“Well, I dated your daughter for six months, so probably everything,” Stiles offers, voice flat.

Henry Tate-- who has been Stiles’s supervisor since he got laid off at the car plant a few hundred miles outside of Beacon Hills, after Stiles’s last supervisor accepted a lateral promotion-- sneers, kicks his feet off his desk, and turns an angry shade of red. 

“Well, there’s that,” he snaps, then thrusts a sheet of paper towards Stiles, holding it in a white-knuckled grip. “And there’s also _this_.”

Stiles takes the paper with a sigh and settles, without invitation, into one of the chairs on the far side of the desk. “Sorry,” he says, voice hollow, not sparing the sheet a glance.

“Sorry?” Henry all but snarls, getting to his feet. “Stiles, how many chances have you had? How many chances have I _given you_?”

Henry’s an emotional guy, and since he came in half a year ago and saw a picture of Malia in Stiles’s cubicle (a surprise, then, because he had no clue Malia had been seeing anyone), they’ve been on rocky footing. So, now, when Henry begins his typical your-stats-are-awful rant, Stiles goes to the familiar place of looking off into the middle distance, eyes unfocused, thinking about the exciting list of chores he’ll have to start tackling today. He still hasn’t done a single load of laundry since he got back from LA.

“I can’t keep covering your ass, Stiles,” Henry spits, beginning to wrap things up.“Either these go--” he grabs Stiles’s wrist and shakes it, making the paper in his hand shake, too, “-- or _you_ go. No more warnings.”

Which-- what?

“ _What_?” Stiles demands.

“You heard me,” Henry grits out, sounding murderous.

“That’s-- that’s ridiculous! I’m one of your best techs!”

“And yet, look at your customer reviews. You’re my least-liked rep, Stiles. These stupid bastards would rather work with a block of wood than put up with your attitude.”

Stiles works his jaw. “I solve their issues, don’t I?”

“Sure, you solve the issues,” Henry agrees, mocking him. “But they don’t like you, Stiles. In case you haven’t noticed, putting yourself on mute and coasting on your technical skills isn’t the business model here. Clearly you’re having trouble with that, so maybe it’s time for you to look into other employment opportunities.”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you,” Stiles mutters, resisting the urge to crumple the stats paper. He hasn’t even looked at it properly yet, but he doesn’t have to to see row after row of red boxes.

“Seeing as how you and your stats are the only thing standing between me and my end of the year bonus? Yeah, I would.”

Stiles scowls at him. “There has to be something I can do. I have bills, Mr. Tate. An apartment.”

Henry sighs and settles back into his chair, his cheeks still flushed and his eyes still bulging a little. “Look, Stiles,” he says, deflating. “You’re a-- good kid. All other shit aside. I don’t want you to lose your job, and I’ve stood up for you for months now, but at a point this stuff starts to be taken above my head.”

Stiles folds himself forward, elbows on his knees, and drags his hands over his shorn hair, frustrated. It’s not like he even _likes_ his job-- he just has no idea what he’d do if he _lost_ it.

“You’re not an idiot, Stiles,” Henry continues. “You have the brains for the job, but your soft skills have been rock bottom since you hit the floor, and there hasn’t been a single upward trend in that. Smart kid like you, I have to start thinking it’s deliberate.”

Which isn’t-- it’s not _wrong_ to say that. 

“I didn’t know my job was on the line,” Stiles admits, voice weak, and Henry snorts.

“That’s just America, kid,” he says, voice softer than his words. “Your job is _always_ on the line.” He leans back in his seat and pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “Look. I’m not saying you can’t work hard, get your shit together, and really succeed here,” he continues, then meets Stiles’s gaze. “I’m just wondering-- is that what you want?”

“Having a job isn’t about wanting a job,” Stiles says, unfolding himself and raising his chin. “It’s about necessity. And, trust me, I _need_ a job.”

“Well, that’s the truth,” Henry says, nodding. “But maybe what you need is a specific type of job. One that doesn’t involve customer service, probably.”

“Do we have one of those available? Sign me up.”

Henry shakes his head, looking exhausted. He’s a-- he’s a good guy. He’s had Stiles’s back for a while now, despite the tension between them. Henry can be a hardass, and he’s a little fire-and-brimstone with his coaching methods, but he means well, usually. If he’s saying now that Stiles needs to look into other options, well...

A tense silence settles between them-- Stiles glaring at the stats sheet he still hasn’t fully looked at, Henry’s gaze taking a pitying turn. It’s horrible, and it doesn’t take long for it to get downright unbearable. 

“Can I go back to my desk?” Stiles asks when he reaches his breaking point.

Henry sighs. “Think about what I said, Stiles. There’s nothing wrong with saying something’s not for you.”

Stiles clambers to his feet, shakes himself out, and turns towards the door.

“One more thing,” Henry says, just before he can go. “I want you on fourth shift for the next few weeks with Violet and Garrett. They have top stats for the last few months, and they’ve volunteered to help you out with yours.”

Stiles makes an incredulous, disgusted expression, but Henry raises his hands before he can say something snide.

“I know, I know. It’s no fun, but if you want to hold your spot here while you look for another job or while you boost your stats, this is our compromise. Deal?”

Stiles shakes his head, not trusting himself to say anything, and shuts Henry’s door maybe a little too hard behind him.

*

Over Skype that night, after Stiles finishes ranting, Malia looks at him with her head cocked to the side. 

“You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” she asks. He looks away, swallowing. “Well, don’t be. My dad stopped hating you after I met Liam. He was really hoping you two would have a common enemy with that one.”

Stiles holds his tongue; Malia’s made it known more than once that his opinion of Liam isn’t one she’s interested in hearing. Apparently there’s only so many times you can hear the word _shrimp_ without starting to feel violent about it. Or something.

“I know he doesn’t-- he doesn’t _hate_ me,” he admits, scrubbing a hand over his head. “He actually sounded like he felt bad for me there at the end. It was weird. I don’t know how to handle your dad being an actual person instead of Darth Vader. At least he gave me fourth shift with the actual worst people alive, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to do with all this pent up resentment.”

On her side of the camera, Malia is only half-listening, if that. She’s gone back to flipping slowly through wedding magazines-- looking for the right shade of white for this or maybe the right breed of flowers for that. Who knows.

“What are you going to do?” she asks, her eyes still downcast. She dog-ears a page and moves on. 

“I guess I’m looking for another job now,” he sighs. “And completely changing my sleep schedule, _fuck_.”

“Yikes.”

“Speaking of jobs--” he says, eyes narrowing at her.

“Yeah, no, not talking about it.”

“Does Liam _know_?”

“Of course Liam knows,” she snaps, meaning that Liam definitely does not know that Malia quit her job to follow Stiles to LA.

“Dude, how is lying to the dude you’re about to promise your entire life to Plan _A_?”

“How about you stop judging my life choices and start thinking about why you haven’t texted Derek yet?” Malia suggests, looking up finally, a smug expression on her face when she sees Stiles recoil.

“Scott _told you_?” he asks, betrayed.

“Of course he didn’t tell me,” she snorts. “I just know you, and I knew you’d freak out about this.”

Stiles blinks. He hadn’t-- he didn’t-- “Am I that obvious?”

“Only to us, and only because we love you I think. Otherwise people just assume you’re being obnoxious, not that you’re over thinking things because you don’t want to screw things up and it’s making you get weird.”

Stiles blinks some more. “Wow, Malia. That is… surprisingly insightful.”

She shrugs, licks her finger, and uses it to turn another page. “You shouldn’t freak out about it. If he says anything stupid, I’ll kick his ass.”

Malia expresses most of her love through violence (a hallmark of their relationship had been the roughhousing, which Stiles never really ‘got’ but apparently-- ugh-- Liam does), and knowing that she’d be willing to fight someone on Stiles’s behalf is enough to make him grin at her, feeling a little dopey about it. 

“You love me,” he sing-songs. “You _loooove_ me.”

“I love this dress,” she corrects, holding up the magazine to show Stiles a dress that’s a knee-length tulle monstrosity. “Think Liam will like it?”

Stiles’s grin goes sharp. “Who cares about Liam? Fuck Liam. If he doesn’t like it, fuck Liam.”

Malia nods, serious. “You’re right. He’ll love it.” She takes her red marker to the dress and circles it vigorously. 

Quiet settles between them as she continues to go through her magazines and he watches on, trying to remember what it was like to think that he’d be with Malia forever, happily ever after, the whole shebang. It feels like a lifetime ago.

“Thanks, Malia,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” she waves him off with the hand holding her marker. “Your shitty new schedule is still Monday through Friday, right?”

“Yeah…?”

“Good, so you can still come to my reception dress sizing next Saturday, and I don’t have to reschedule.”

Stiles buries his face in his hands and groans. 

*

“I don’t see what the problem is,” his dad tells him on Sunday night-- a full week since Stiles came back from LA-- while they’re sitting on the back porch, waiting for the coals in the grill to ash. “You hate that job. You’ve _always_ hated that job.”

“The money’s good,” Stiles admits. 

“Nothing’s good if you’re miserable, trust me on that.”

“You know what would make me miserable?” Stiles asks, gesturing with his beer. “Having to move back in with you because I’m broke and can’t pay any of my bills.”

His dad gives him a flat look. “Have you even tried looking for anything else?”

It’s stupid how well his dad knows him, even though Stiles has been out of the house for years. “I plead the fifth,” Stiles grumbles, averting his eyes and taking a swig of his beer. His dad hums in a _I thought so_ kind of way and pokes at the coals in the grill, looking approvingly at their grayed corners and undersides.

In Stiles’s defense, he’s tried to start looking-- really, he has-- but the internet is a seriously vast and distracting place. The focus he has for things he’s _interested_ in is limited, so something as tedious as job hunting while he’s still technically employed? That doesn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of keeping his attention.

“Look, Stiles, you know I love you. But maybe Tate’s onto something with this one. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen happen in this town, anyway.”

“So you think I’m awful at my job, too, then,” Stiles summarizes, voice dull, resigned. “Great. Thanks for the support, Dad.”

“Aw hell, kid. You know that’s not what I’m saying. I just want to see you happy.”

Stiles takes a swig of his beer. “What’s not to be happy about?” he asks mulishly. “I have good friends, a job that pays well, a roof over my head, and an X-Box.”

“Is that how we’re measuring happiness these days?” 

“ _Mass Effect 3_ ’s ending notwithstanding, yeah.”

There’s a rapping on the doorframe behind them, and Stiles twists his body around towards it. Melissa’s standing in the doorway, a plate of marinated, uncooked steaks in one hand.

“Sorry to cut in,” she says, “but are we ready to get these going?”

Stiles’s dad pokes at the coals again, looking thoughtful. “These are about as ashed as they’re gonna get. Might as well.”

There’s a weird moment where Stiles’s dad and Melissa just sort of stare at each other, and maybe Stiles can read his dad as well as his dad can read him because he knows that’s his cue to get up and join Scott inside in front of the game.

“Hey,” he says, dropping down onto the couch beside Scott.

“I don’t understand football,” Scott admits.

“I don’t know if you can call a Dolphins game ‘football,’” Stiles sighs. “It’s only a game if both teams stand a chance. This is more like a crime scene--” he looks at the scorecard in the corner of the screen and amends, “--maybe a _massacre_. But my dad will kill us if we change it.”

They sit quietly for a while, polishing off their beers and grimacing at the screen with every mistake the Dolphins make until Stiles gets restless, can’t focus on anything. He leans over the armrest of the couch and looks out to the back porch, where his dad and Melissa are still talking, then looks back at Scott.

“Hey,” he says, and he knocks on Scott’s chest with the back of his hand. “Wanna go up on the roof?”

Scott’s eyes bulge. “Are you _serious_?” he asks.

“Yeah, why not? We used to do it all the time.”

“Do you…” Scott hesitates, lowers his voice. “Did you _bring_ stuff?”

Stiles grins at him. “I might have prepared for the worst case scenario, yeah.”

Scott’s face gets that pinched look it sometimes gets when he’s trying to choose between doing the thing his mom wants him to do and the thing he wants to do for himself. But Stiles knows Scott, and he knows what it means when that pinched look goes away, leaving something excited and conspiratory behind in its wake.

“You in?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “Lead the way.”

*

“I haven’t done this since undergrad,” Scott admits between coughing fits. “That time in Heather and Danielle’s dorm.”

“Heather and Danielle!” Stiles cries, throwing his hands up, excited. The joint is still pinched between two of his fingers. “I remember them! I liked them.”

“You hated them,” Scott corrects. “Danielle said you’d never go anywhere in life with an Associate’s Degree then told you Heather was a ten and you were a six on a good day, if you kept your mouth closed. Dude, you really hated them.”

“I liked Heather,” Stiles insists. He takes a hit. “She had the, the thing?” Here he gestures at his chest, at where his soulmark is under his shirts. “I thought maybe she’d be, like, the one.”

“I know, man. I thought she was, too.”

“But she and Danielle--”

“Yeah.”

“I liked them,” Stiles repeats, starting to feel his high in his lips. “I don’t know if Derek likes me.”

“What,” Scott says, no inflection in his voice. “You’re the best.”

“I know!”

“Of course he likes you. You’re his soulmate. That’s how it works.”

Stiles and Scott started smoking in eighth grade when a kid in their grade stole some of his older brother’s weed and brought it to a HALO night at Harley’s place. Scott’s always been a little more susceptible to the sillies on it-- gets dazed and amazed easily, off just a few hits. Stiles mostly gets relaxed, a little more honest and little less mean. Of the two of them, it’s Stiles who’s more susceptible to bad highs, so he has to be choosier about the stuff he buys. 

The stuff they’ve rolled tonight is over a month old; Malia was never fond of the way it smelled (her drug of choice being ‘shrooms, which never fail to make Stiles feel like he has bugs crawling out of his eyes and mouth and nose and-- yeah, no, _fuck_ ‘shrooms), so while they were together Stiles would only get high with his friends and miss her presence and complain, too honest, about it. After they broke up, he tried smoking a few times and had one bad high after another and another-- until he gave up.

Now it tastes a little dry, the smoke a little harsher than he likes, but it’s a good high, and sharing it with Scott feels like old times, the two of them curled together on the side of the roof that’s not visible from either the road or the back porch, away from prying eyes. They came out here when they were kids to practice kissing, once, and when Stiles’s mom died he sat out there for an entire day before Scott crawled out after him and held him while he shook, no tears left to cry.

Now, his voice low and breathy, Stiles confesses, “I really want him to like me.”

Scott wraps an arm around his shoulders and takes the joint in his other hand. “Do _you_ even like _Derek_?” he asks, picking at the paper. 

Stiles shrugs. “I want to,” he admits. “But I don’t know what to do with him.”

“Have you two talked at all since you got home?”

“Not really? I got one measly text the night we came back-- then nothing.”

“That sucks,” Scott says, sighing. “I’m sorry, man.”

The sky above them is streaked orange and pink, the sun receding quietly over the horizon. They press their bodies together, side to side, and pass the joint between them slowly, smoking it down, down, down and then stamping it out on the shingles when the ember begins to bite at their fingers.

“I don’t want to be the one always chasing after him,” Stiles says, feeling defeated and mad about feeling defeated all at once. “Heather, Malia, Derek. I’m always chasing.”

He stretches his knees out and falls onto his back, starfishing. Scott goes down after him, slowly, lying back on Stiles’s outstretched arms. 

“He’ll come around,” Scott says with more confidence than Stiles feels. Stiles mostly feels sleepy, his eyelids heavy, his hands tingly. “I know he will.”

“You have a lot of faith in someone you’ve met all of-- never,” Stiles grumbles, rolling his body to bury his face in Scott’s shoulder, tugging his arm out from under him before it falls asleep.

Scott makes a dismissive noise. “He’s your other half,” he says. “I have a lot of faith that that means he’s probably pretty great.”

Stiles presses his smile into Scott’s shirt. “You’re soft,” he says. “I’m gonna nap now because you’re soft.”

“You do that, buddy,” Scott whispers. “I’ll be right here.”

*

After eating two steaks and a pile of mashed potatoes the size of his head, Stiles sobers up enough to drive. He drops Scott off at his apartment then takes himself home, his mouth tasting like weed and steak sauce, and he feels like he’s walking through a dream. Thanks to his abrupt move to the fourth shift, he won’t have to wake up for almost twenty hours if he passes out ASAP, and a twenty hour nap sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

For the most part he feels better, less restless in the face of the great unknown that his life is quickly becoming. A night spent with their little makeshift family was just what he needed. He’s even considering picking up the job search tomorrow by the time he’s taking off his jacket and stumbling into his room.

He gets as far as taking his shirt off before he gives up, too worn out and still high enough for even the smallest tasks to feel huge and impossible. He crawls into bed with his jeans unbuttoned and doesn’t kick them off until he’s under the covers entirely, not even bothered by the way his keys-- still in his pocket-- are digging into his butt.

Then something buzzes.

At first he thinks he imagined it but, a few seconds later, the reminder vibration he has programmed on his phone goes off again and he scrambles to get to his phone where it’s buried in one of the pockets on his jeans. He blinks, eyes too bleary to read the screen, and then he sees the name attached to it.

It’s a text from Derek, and it reads: **I updated my texting plan.**

Stiles shoots up into a sitting position, reading and rereading it to make sure he’s not hallucinating. That’s not usually a symptom of his weed smoking, but weirder things have happened. His fingers have minds of their own, and where his head is lagging, they’re not.

**Hell yeah!**  
 **It only took you approximately eighty-four years**  
 **That’s not an exaggeration by the way**  
 **The year is 2098**  
 **I’m 108 years old**  
 **You’re the oldest man ever to live at**  
 **Wait how old are you now?**

He remembers, then, that Derek is famous-- has been for a while-- and that that sort of information about him-- along with his middle name and brief relationship history and an overview of his family-- is probably on Wikipedia. And, thanks to the 21st century and smart phones, all of that information is right at his fingertips. 

**Wikipedia says 29**  
 **Weirdly, that actually makes ME feel old**  
 **Anyway**  
 **Welcome to the 21st century**  
 **I mean it’s 2098 so there’s only 2 years left of it but welcome anyway**  
 **Are you really a Christmas baby?**

He’s just high enough that he doesn’t realize how _many_ texts he’s sent until he looks up and notices that his entire screen is just… his text messages. So much for not being the chaser, he thinks bitterly, He flops back down on the bed and drops his phone to the side, trying not to let his high twist something very minor into the biggest catastrophe of his life.

He’s already drafted and trashed his sixth “sorry you’re stuck with this” text (which is hard to write and impossible to send because more than anything he doesn’t want to live in a world where anyone has to text that to their soulmate about themselves, least of all _him_ to _his_ soulmate about _himself_ , Jesus) when Derek’s text comes through.

**2098? Have they remade LOST yet?**  
 **Do you think I have a chance at getting cast as John Locke?**

**You had a great audition, but they gave the role to a robot**  
 **(We have those now)**  
 **The robots-taking-human-jobs debate has been raging for decades.**  
 **Your manager’s a robot. Your dog’s a robot.**  
 **Robots. The future is here.**

**It wouldn’t be the first time someone compared my line delivery to a machine’s.**

Stiles laughs, the remnants of his high making him giddy, and props himself up against the headboard, settling in, his earlier exhaustion a thing of the past.

**The good news is that they are crude machines**  
 **And run off gas**  
 **And gas is like**  
 **$15,000 a gallon now**  
 **So they’re only really a threat to our livelihoods when they’re turned on.**

**So, eventually the robot playing John Locke will have to be replaced.**

**No way, man, that robot is like the George Clooney of robots**  
 **He can buy enough gas to sustain himself for centuries**  
 **Sorry man you’re outta luck**

**Go figure.**  
 **I have to start filming in four hours, so I should probably go to bed.**  
 **But I’m glad we can talk now.**

Stiles feels his heart swell up in his chest a little bit, maybe, but that could also be the high talking. Feeling swollen in various places _is_ a common side effect for him, so who knows.

His fingers make another text to send back, but he catches himself before he sends it. He’s not sure if he’s ready to be so honest as to send something that says _I miss you_. Not yet. He’s going to try a new thing called ‘not trying so hard,’ and see how that works for him.

Instead he says:

**Oh, totally, man!**  
 **Text me whenever, I’m obviously a texting monster who needs to be fed**  
 **Have fun filming tomorrow**  
 **(??? not sure if have fun is the appropriate send off here, let me know)**  
 **Talk to you later**

**It’s fun most of the time.**  
 **Talk to you soon.**

And if Stiles maybe settles down into his bed and rubs his thumb thoughtfully over the word _soon_ until he drifts off-- well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

***

**AUG 13, 2014 --** At long last, the promotional content for _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ is here! Well, sort of. _EW!_ got an exclusive peek at the shoot and a chance to speak to a few of the movie’s stars, including Nate Diamond himself, Derek Hale!

We asked the cast on their thoughts about the upcoming film, how Nate is handling the death of his soulmate Cecily (R&B singer/actress BRAE) that broke our hearts in the last film, and some of the other projects they’ve worked on and plan on working on over the next year or two before working on the seventh _Diamond Interchange_ film, which has already been green lighted. 

Director Bobby Finstock (the _Diamond Interchange_ franchise _, The Bigger They Are)_ let us know that they’re hoping to have a July 2015 release date for the film; when we approached Whittemore Entertainment for a comment, heir apparent Jackson Whittemore promised that they’re in discussions on the release date, and there’s been some speculation that the film will be released mid-spring.

What do you think? Does _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ have what it takes to compete with the summer blockbusters alongside Marvel and DCs long-standing superhero franchises? Check out the cast videos below and let us know what you think! 

***

The next Saturday dawns warm and clear. Malia is woken up by Liam with a kiss to her cheek, and she swats him away, grumbling, and falls back asleep for another fifteen minutes while he pads downstairs to make their coffee. When he comes back, he rouses her with a little shake and says, fondly, “C’mon old lady, you don’t want to be late.”

She blinks blearily at him, her reactions delayed, and puts her hand up, presses it to his face, and pushes him away. He breaks into a wide grin as he leans away and pushes a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. “Just the way we like,” he promises.

“You’ve ruined me,” she accuses, but she uses her free hand to push herself into a sitting position and rub at her eyes, push her hair out of her face, slap her cheek a little to help wake herself up. 

“Mason’s coming by in about an hour. We’re gonna play a pickup game with the guys.” He squints at Malia, who squints back, not sure why she’s being looked at like that. “If that’s okay…?” he asks.

She blinks at him, her brain still not making sense of what he’s saying. “Are you asking for my permission to play a sport?” she asks.

“Yeah, that felt weird,” he agrees, visibly relaxing. “But he’ll be over in a little bit, anyway.”

She’s still squinting at him, suspicious. Liam’s _never_ asked her for permission to do… anything, actually. Before he can get out of bed, she blurts, “Don’t ever do that again.”

He gawks at her.

“I don’t want to be,” she stumbles, not sure how to put the gross taste on her tongue into words. She decides on: “That’s not what I want our marriage to be.”

Liam’s smile is small but pleased, warm, and he leans in to kiss her, even when she tries to pull away because, gross, morning breath. 

“Then it won’t be like that,” he promises. Then he gets to his feet, looking charming and sleepy with his plain red boxers and bedhead. She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, nursing her coffee carefully as she considers him.

He catches her stare and goes as red as his underwear, then ducks into the bathroom when she smiles at him, sly. He calls back to her, from the other room, “Call Stiles-- you know he’s not awake yet.”

Malia grimaces, sets her coffee down on the nightstand, and reaches for her phone.

To her shock, Stiles answers immediately. “Hey, are we going early?” he asks.

She glares at her wall, confused and suddenly suspicious. “Explain,” she demands.

“Whoa, what?” 

“It’s not even nine in the morning, and you’re awake,” she spells out for him. “What’s going on?”

“Maybe I’m trying to be more healthy,” he argues down the line.

If Stiles wants to play coy, that’s fine. Malia sits in a silent judgment, unphased, for three… two… one…

“Okay, so maybe Derek texted me a little while ago and woke me up, it’s whatever,” he admits, grumbling.

He sounds-- happy. Or like he’s trying very, very carefully to not give away how happy he is, which is the same thing for Stiles.

“Oh, gross,” she huffs. “Wrap it up soon. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

“We’re _texting_!” Stiles squawks, indignant. “There’s no wrapping up with texts!”

“You’ve been texting him all week!” she counters. “Scott told me he brought you dinner on Tuesday and you barely looked at him the whole meal.”

“In my defense,” Stiles says, “Derek is surprisingly knowledgeable about Muscle Shoals, and--”

She makes a face. “I don’t need to know about your weird sexting, Stiles!”

“That’s not--!”

Malia presses her lips together to bite down a grin and says, “Wrap it up, Stiles, I have a dress to get made, and if you try to ignore me the whole time, I’ll throw your phone out into the Pacific.”

Ignoring his annoyed sigh, Malia hangs up on him and clambers out of bed to join her fiancée in their shower.

***

> _“Of course, it’s impossible to see the swarm of tweets and posts going to Derek Hale’s fan site with photos of alleged soulmarks and not think about the tragic deaths of Laura and Daniel Hale. This December will mark fifteen years since their passing, and next year we expect to see the remaining Hale family come together for the first parole hearing of David Brunski, who was convicted of second-degree murder of Laura Hale and first-degree murder of Daniel Hale._
> 
> _“If parole is granted, Brunski’s secondary convictions of falsification of a soulmark and stalking-- along with his murder convictions-- will no doubt spark a national discussion again about the laws we currently have in place protecting victims of soulbond crimes._
> 
> _“Do you think soulbond falsification should continue to be treated as a misdemeanor crime? Should it be handled as a felony? Let us know what you think by tweeting us @KABCNews.”_
> 
> (- in a broadcasted radio discussion held on KABC 98.3 on August 29, 2014)

***

  

  

  

### SEPTEMBER

 _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ is supposed to wrap on a Wednesday in mid-September. 

Derek’s not actually there for the filming of the final scene, but he gets a text from Boyd that says _sweet, sweet freedom_. It comes in the middle of a conversation Derek is having with Stiles about Stiles’s job, and Derek-- still getting the hang of texting so much-- nearly sends Boyd a text reading _My first and worst job ever was as a ball pit cleaner at a family fun center_ by accident.

By this point in his life, Derek has done enough of the _Diamond Interchange_ movies that the whole process feels pretty routine. There’s a lot of chaos for a few months, followed by a brief lull before he picks up the convention circuit for a bit before going into the promotional tour. But between Derek’s soulmark disrupting nearly three whole weeks of their schedule, and filming for _Nitro_ stretching a lot longer than they’d originally anticipated (the film’s car racing sequences being more ambitious than they’d realized at the forefront), plans have gotten muddled. He’s done his best for the last month or so not to think about it.

His phone rings, then, and Lydia’s name flashes on its screen.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she says as soon as he picks up. She sounds furious.

“It doesn’t sound like I’m going to like it, either,” he sighs, settling back into the couch cushions.

“They already have a script drafted for the next movie, and they want to film a post-credit scene based on it.”

Derek goes tense, anticipating the worst from the outset. “I thought we were wrapping today,” he says, careful.

“Change of plans. They found a leading lady for the seventh film. A very, very busy lady who’s booked pretty solid between October and July.”

That’s-- weird. Derek hadn’t even done a chemistry read with anyone yet. He’s contracted in for two more films, so he was prepared for that. But so soon? And with someone they didn’t want to see him act off of? 

“Sounds like she’s a pretty big deal,” he hedges.

“It’s Braeden,” Lydia says, blunt.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh. Okay. She’s-- coming back? Her character isn’t dead?”

“Apparently not.”

Which-- honestly that’s the best news Derek’s had in weeks now. It had been hard seeing Braeden-- and her character, who had been cast as Nate Diamond’s soulmate-- written into a death scene, but her talent had taken her on to bigger, better places and roles. Derek and Braeden had let their relationship end amicably, unable to align their schedules well enough and not wanting to hurt one another, and a month ago Derek would have been thrilled to have her back on set.

But now? He’s hesitant. With Stiles in his life, it’s going to be tricky.

“When do they want to start filming?” he asks.

“Other than this one scene? Not for two, maybe three years.”

He feels his shoulders relax; that should be long enough for him to build a strong, stable bond with Stiles that won’t be shaken by scripted love scenes. But Lydia called him, clearly brimming with irritation, and he knows well enough that he hasn’t gotten to the bad news yet.

“What is the post-credit scene?” he asks.

Lydia takes a breath. “It’s a dream sequence. Nate’s dream sharing with Cecily starts up again.”

Derek stands up sharply, his grip on the phone going tight. “They don’t want us to--”

“Yeah,” she says, sounding bitter. “Listen, Derek, I’m trying to talk them down from it, but I can only do so much without letting them know about Stiles, and they want to bring you and Braeden in tomorrow.”

“I’ll call her,” he tells her. “She’ll understand, and maybe we can put some pressure on their side.”

“ _Please_ ,” Lydia scoffs. “You think I didn’t call her first? Give me a _little_ credit, Derek. She’s had her people blowing up Finstock’s phone for hours now. I’m not sure how much good that will do us when the order is coming from above his head, though.”

“Above his head?” Derek asks, feeling his stomach drop into his gut.

She sighs. “The Powers that Be are nervous that _Nitro_ can’t sell itself on action alone, and they’re not particularly happy about the vengeful, aggressively unattached Nate Diamond storyline it’s got going on. Sex sells-- and it’s sold a lot for this franchise in particular-- so some people aren’t happy putting this film out with absolutely no sex to speak of.”

Derek draws a deep, slow breath. His hands are shaking. “I’m not ready to go public about Stiles,” he admits.

“I thought you might feel that way. I wish I could say we could get away with slapping an NDA on this and not worrying about it, but I’m not confident about that knowing how much buzz there was around your soulmark pictures.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Our bargaining chip now is cutting out the post-credits scene in exchange for bringing Braeden on the convention circuit and promotional tour. It’s unconventional, but it could bring people in for this movie and have a bonus of hyping up the next movie. I’m hoping they’ll bite.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” she says. “Derek, we need to talk to Stiles. I know you don’t want to have him sign anything--”

“I’m not giving him an NDA, Lydia,” Derek says, voice firm. “He’s fine.”

“I know he’s your soulmate, but what about his friends? What’s keeping them from saying anything?”

He has to the urge to hang up on her-- old habits dying hard and all that-- but he resists that and grits out, “One of them is _your_ soulmate too. You want to make him sign one of those things?”

“If it means keeping those vultures off your back twenty-four-seven? I’d make the Pope himself sign them,” she says-- direct, firm.

“It’s been over a month and nothing’s happened,” he points out. “If they were going to let the cat out of the bag, it’d be out by now.”

“All it takes is one word for us to be back at square one again,” Lydia counters. “It doesn’t have to be leaked to the news, just to a friend who knows someone who knows someone, and then where will you be? Where will Stiles be?”

It’s a compelling argument, but Derek’s only just gotten on speaking terms with Stiles, and he’s reluctant to allow anything that could damage the tentative progress they’ve made between each other over late-night arguments about which of the Star Wars movies is the best. 

But it’s not just Derek who would be hurt by another media parade-- Lydia, Kira, Cora, Boyd, Erica… so many people would be back to working overtime, running themselves ragged, and looking over their shoulders everywhere they went for the paparazzi. He doesn’t want to put his friends and loved ones at risk just because he’s too scared of the possibility of offending Stiles.

He really, really does not want to offend Stiles, though.

He hasn’t had a dream about him in weeks, and if it weren’t for his text message logs Derek would be inclined to believe he’d dreamed up Stiles entirely. He feels out of his skin sometimes, like he needs to run and run and run to work off the excess, restless energy his body builds up when he thinks about Stiles. He finds himself stopping what he’s doing throughout the day to get up and walk around, fantasizing about things he would say or do in front of Stiles if he were around. It’s irrational and silly but now that they’ve met, something inside of Derek feels hungry and desperate all the time.

He’s not in any position to make any decisions when he’s like this, useless with how much he wants.

“Lydia,” he groans, frustrated and uncertain.

“Just let me talk to him,” she coaxes, knowing she has Derek where she needs him, probably. “All I have to do is call him, and I’ll explain everything. I’ll get the paperwork drawn up and let him know what it says, and with any luck he and his friends will have them sent back in two weeks, tops.”

“Fine,” he concedes, teeth grit. 

Then Lydia says, “I’ll let you know what’s going on with Braeden as soon as I know anything,” and hangs up on him.

*

**I hate my job**

**I don’t think I actually know what you DO at your job.**

**Nothing glamorous**  
 **I just clean up computers remotely**

**What?**

**Oh uh**  
 **I use this program to uhhh**  
 **Fuck**  
 **I can basically see someone’s entire computer from my work computer?**  
 **Using this software the company I work for has contracted out**  
 **So from my seat I can assist with virus removal and like**  
 **Reinstalling drivers, running windows updates**  
 **For people all over the country**  
 **From my little cubicle**  
 **And yeah it’s exactly as boring as it sounds**

**There’s a joke about government conspiracy theories in there somewhere.**

**Oh fuck me**  
 **Don’t even JOKE**  
 **I have to hear that shit TOO MUCH**  
 **Blah blah blah NSA blah blah blah constitution**  
 **I don’t give a shit dude just PLEASE let me uninstall two of your three anti-viruses**

**Something tells me that’s typically EXACTLY how that conversation goes.**

**IN MY DEFENSE**  
 **[...]**

**?**

**Yeah, I got nothing**

*

Braeden calls him a few days later and says, “How much do you love me?” and Derek breathes a sigh of relief.

“If this is you calling to let me know that we’re not filming a post-credits scene together this week, I’m tempted to ask you to marry me,” he tells her.

She hums like she’s considering it. “I’ll trade you the white dress and the rock for you helping catching me up on _New Girl_ and telling me about your boy.”

He hesitates. “Do you have time for that?” Not that a day of coasting on his couch and watching _New Girl_ with Braeden doesn’t sound like exactly what Derek wants to do-- he just knows how busy she’s gotten since they last worked together.

“I’m sick of not having time for you guys,” she sighs down the line. “So, with the schedule they wanted to use for our scene this week, I’ve made time.” There’s a pause. “Unless that doesn’t work for you…?”

“It works for me,” he assures her. “I have a couple of weeks off until my first con of the season, so I have all the time in the world.”

“Believe it or not, I’m jealous.”

He believes it; there was a reason he and Braeden were so good together while it lasted, and a lot of it had to do with how similarly they liked to unwind. They’ve been broken up for the better part of three years now, but they do their best to get together between various jobs because nothing relaxes Derek like Braeden steadily pointing out the flaws in his anxiety-ridden, fatalistic points of view. Derek’s never been completely sure of what he brings to the table, but he doesn’t question Braeden’s judgment. 

“So,” she says from down the line, breaking his train of thought, “what are you feeling? Chinese? I could go for some egg rolls right now, let me tell you.”

Egg rolls aren’t a part of Derek’s approved diet, but he says, “Hell yeah,” anyway.

*

As it turns out, Braeden doesn’t have much interest in _watching_ New Girl; she literally wants Derek to catch her up on it by explaining the season’s arc so far. She nods along and picks at her lo mein when he details Nick and Jess’s relationship, makes appropriate faces when he goes on tangents, and offers him pieces of her teriyaki chicken between his rants when she gets a word in edgewise.

“Sounds like an exciting season,” she says around a mouthful of rice when he’s finished.

He shrugs. “Season two is still my favorite.”

“That’s because you hate change,” she accuses, pointing her chopsticks at him. “And at some point you decided season two was your favorite, and now it will always be Your Favorite, whether or not that’s objectively true.”

“Since when do favorites have to be objective?”

Her grin is wolfish. “They don’t. I’m just letting you know that season two is always going to be your favorite, no matter how good the show gets.”

He takes a bite of another egg roll-- his third-- instead of dignifying it with a response. After a while of the two of them eating quietly, Braeden sets aside her food and reclines against the armrest of Derek’s couch.

“So, tell me about the kid,” she says. 

Derek rolls his eyes. “He’s nearly twenty-five.”

“We were ‘nearly twenty-five’ about six years ago,” she counters, nudging his knee with her own. “Why are you so shy about this? You know I saw him at the premiere the other night, right? Thanks for showing up to that, by the way, I would have understood if you’d skipped out to avoid the papz.”

He dismisses the idea with a shake of his head and looks away. “I’m not shy about it,” he says, slow, thinking about the words as he says them. “I just don’t know what to tell you. There’s not much to say.”

She levels a flat, unimpressed look on him. “You have to be the only person in history who’s met their soulmate and felt like there wasn’t anything to say about them. Remember when Kali and Julia met?”

Derek cringes at the memory.

“I thought there was something wrong with _me,”_ she continues. “Nobody would speak to me because I was the new girl and the soulmate love interest, doing my first big movie role, and I was worried enough that I wouldn’t click with you guys even before Julia Baccari came on set and sent everyone-- including the girl in charge of my makeup-- into a freakin’ tizzy.”

Derek mouths the word _tizzy_ silently, baffled.

She nudges him again. “This is the part where you tell me I was instantly loved by all and you wouldn’t have gotten through those two movies without me,” she tells him.

He gives her a look. “No, I couldn’t stand you,” he deadpans. “That’s why we stayed together for three years.”

Her hair falls over the armrest in dark, shiny curls when she throws her head back and laughs. She’s effortlessly beautiful and warm, one of the few people he welcomes consistently into his personal space like this. He didn’t realize how much he’d been missing her until this moment.

“Spill the beans, Hale” she teases. “Just because I have all day doesn’t mean I wanna waste any of it.”

He’s incapable of denying her anything, so Derek takes a breath and begins to talk.

***

> **SEPT 18, 2014 --** CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! _Diamond Interchange: Nitro_ star Derek Hale was seen leaving his north Hollywood apartment with none other than his former co-star and lover, R&B star BRAEDEN! This is the first time the two have been seen together since Hale’s soulmark was leaked almost two months ago. Could this mean they’ve rekindled their relationship? I know what you’re thinking, readers, because this queen is thinking it, too: ARE DEREK HALE AND BRAEDEN SOULMATES??
> 
> Only time will tell, but for the meantime, these pictures sure are steamy, aren’t they? xoxo
> 
> (- from an entry on THE TUCKER CORN _DISH_ published September 18, 2014)

***

**So I hear you’re the soulmate of the hottest and most talented woman in AMERICA**

**I was hoping you hadn’t seen that yet.**

**Would it be weird if I asked you to get her autograph for me??**  
 **Because I’m not even kidding dude**  
 **Her music CHANGED MY LIFE**  
 **The only friends I made in college I made because I drove around campus blasting “Annie getcha gun”ok?**

**You’re surprisingly okay with this.**

**With what?**

**The story? The rumors?**

**Oh well**  
 **I mean**  
 **If the world thinks SHE’S your soulmate then they’re not knocking on my door, right?**

**That’s one way to look at it.**

**And besides**  
 **You could end our burgeoning little bond right here, right now**  
 **And as long as you said “sorry, BRAE asked me to”**  
 **I’d be like “oh well in that case, by all means”**  
 **And then I’d ask you to get me her autograph**

**Hmm.**  
 **I’ll see what I can do.**

**You get me that signature Derek and you can forget being my soulmate**  
 **Because you will officially be MY HERO**

***

Working the fourth shift fucks Stiles’s internal clock to hell and back. He works from eleven at night until seven-thirty in the morning and tempts fate by dragging his ass back to his apartment across town to get home and pass out by eight o’clock. He gets pulled over a lot the first few weeks for erratic driving, but his dad must have let his deputies know what’s up because instead of tickets and fines, Stiles gets a lot of pitying looks and hears “Let me give you a ride home, Stiles,” every other day.

Which, you know, not the safest practice, but it’s working in Stiles’s favor, so he resolves early on not to examine it too closely.

So, he sleeps from eight until about four or five o’clock at night, when he surfaces feeling grimy and disoriented because he fell asleep when it was light outside but wakes up when the sun is going down or-- on the worst days-- when the sun has already set.

Inevitably, he ends up lingering in bed for about half an hour, texting Derek or jerking off (sometimes one will interrupt the other, which he tries not to feel too guilty about), which is what happens on a mid-September Wednesday when Stiles wakes up alone and in the fading orange light of late afternoon.

He lays in his bed, stares at the ceiling, scratches absently at his stomach, and thinks about Derek, trying to put the puzzle of him together in his head as he and Derek exchange texts about the latest expose on _Tucker Cornish_ about Derek’s soulmark. It’s nice, but it’s also…. Well. Having Derek on the other side of the phone while he lies in bed is _close_ to dreaming about him, which is _close_ to being with him in real life, sort of. And Stiles will take it, but it’s-- it’s far from ideal. 

Text Derek lacks Derek’s perplexed, annoyed, and baffled expressions-- his sleepy-slack mouth and drooping eyes, his big hand warm as it ran up and down Stiles’s back. Dream Derek sometimes has those things, but he’s not witty, can’t talk to Stiles about B-rate horror films and argue about which ACDC singer he likes more. If he could somehow merge Dream Derek and Text Derek into one person, maybe Stiles could come close to that feeling he had seeing Derek in person, the way his heart climbed into his throat and made him feel out of his skin with curiosity, desire, and anxiety.

Scott looks at Stiles knowingly these days, like he knows about the itch Stiles has under his skin at all times, the way he’s constantly reaching for his phone and hoping, hoping. And if Scott can see through Stiles, that tells Stiles exactly one thing-- he’s _pining_. 

He rolls over in his bed and groans into his pillow, resigned. He’s never gone in by halves before, so why would that be any different with his soulmate? His phone buzzes in his hand, and he looks at it, his cheek smushed against his pillow. The text from Derek says _Can we at least agree that Big Balls is the best ACDC song?_

Stiles grins and uses both hands to text back, _oh, hell yes we can._

*

> _Mr. STILINSKI:_
> 
> _Thank you for submitting your application for INTERNAL TECHNICIAN, BEACON HILLS BRANCH to Walcott Communications. Unfortunately, after reviewing your resume and past experience, we’ll be needing someone with more prior experience in working with mobile phones. As of SEPTEMBER 20, 2014, we are not hiring for positions in our IT department and are only seeking floor technicians to assist customers with troubleshooting their mobile devices._
> 
> _We thank you for your time and wish you all the best in finding the right career for you._
> 
> _Michael Walcott_
> 
> _Human Resources_

***

Liam comes home to find Malia, Scott, and Stiles on his couch, Scott and Malia on either side of Stiles, who has his head in his hands and is scrubbing at his shorn hair. He drops his keys in the dish under the coat rack by the door and hesitates, uncertain of his welcome.

Which is stupid-- it’s _his_ apartment. But there’s a tension hanging around the living room, and Malia has a look on her face like she’s tempted to put her foot through the glass coffee table, which is enough to make Liam wary.

Scott sees him though, and he nods before standing and clapping Stiles on the back.

“I’m gonna get one of those beers,” he says to him. “Does that sound good?”

“Beer never sounds good,” Stiles sighs, rubbing at his eyes, still unaware of Liam’s presence. “But being drunk as shit? Yeah, that sounds great.”

“Cool,” Scott says, and he slips out of the living room, jerking his head for Liam to follow him into Liam’s own kitchen.

“What’s up?” Liam asks when they get there. Scott had been his Big in college, then president of their fraternity, and when everything had gone down with Malia and Stiles, Scott had been something of an anchor to him, a voice of reason.

Now, Scott opens the refrigerator and purses his lips into a tight, concerned line. He’s rummaging through something, moving some items around, and comes out with a bottle of Octoberfest. 

“Stiles is job hunting,” he says after a minute, looking grim.

“Not going well?”

Scott shakes his head. Then he gives Liam a contrite look. “Sorry for taking up your couch. Stiles came here first because it was closer, then Malia called me. If we’re bothering you we can move over to my place. I don’t mind.”

It’s so _Scott_ to offer and-- knowing him-- he’d probably be able to pull off an awkward maneuver like that without batting an eyelash and without ruffling any feathers in the process. Things between Liam and Stiles have-- they could be better, sure. 

(Better, Liam thinks in his weaker moments, if Stiles disappeared, didn’t come by, never called Malia again.)

But whatever it is between Malia and Stiles, whatever bond they made while they were together (even if it wasn’t a _soul_ bond) has proven resilient, and there’s no sign of it going away anytime soon, so Liam’s resigned himself grouchily to Stiles’s presence in his life. Probably for the _rest of_ his life.

The less charitable part of him is tempted to take Scott up on his offer and kick Stiles out on the curb to mope, but the second he sends Stiles away, Malia will only follow, and Liam decided a while back that he owed Malia every charitable crumb of himself he could scrounge up.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says after a pregnant pause. “Job hunting can really take it out of you. He can drink himself blind in there, if that makes it better for a while.”

Scott smiles at him, small and warm, and the part of Liam that has looked up to Scott McCall for half a decade now preens under his approval. Scott reaches out and holds his shoulder, shakes him appreciatively.

“Thanks, Liam,” he says. “That’s really cool of you.”

Liam ducks his head, trying not to smile, and wriggles out of Scott’s grip. “Yeah, yeah, now get out of my kitchen. I have dinner to make.”

***

**I didn’t have a lot of time to learn that stuff.**  
 **When I was at school, we didn’t have typing classes yet. That was a little after my generation, I guess.**  
 **I turned in a lot of hand-written essays, and I spent most of my time in the gym.**  
 **Most of the stuff I read was at home, and my sister gave it to me. I never wanted to read them, but she’d talk me into it, tell me what it was about, nag me until I gave in.  
 **I always liked books she liked, but I never got into books I had to read for school.** **

**I, on the other hand, remember being introduced to ask jeevesin first grade.**  
 **One of the first homework assignments I remember being assigned was to use ask jeeves or google to find out the order of the presidents of the u.s.**  
 **Been hooked on the internet ever since, I guess**  
 **[...]**  
 **HEY for science**  
 **And by science I mean future bets**  
 **Can you tell me if it’s really you who runs your twitter page**  
 **Because I suspect Lydia**

**No, it’s me.**  
 **[...]**  
 **… Usually.**

**Fuckin CALLED IT**

***

The thing about Stiles being a Man of Honor is that he had no idea until one week ago-- after his job-hunting meltdown on Malia’s couch-- that he was _going to be_ a Man of Honor. Halfway through his third bottle of Octoberfest, Malia had mentioned it offhandedly, and he’d spittaked all over her living room out of surprise.

“I thought you knew,” she’d insisted.

“People don’t just know that, Malia!” he’d argued.

“Stiles,” she’d said, her face serious, her shoulders hunched slightly, “who else would it be?”

And Stiles, gob smacked, had had nothing to say to that.

The other problem with Stiles being a Man of Honor is that Men of Honor have to write speeches, and Stiles has never been in a position where he’s had to give a speech before. Not actually in front of people, anyway. His college speech class had been an online course, and his speeches had been delivered to a camera, for only his speech professor to see.

Malia’s set to get married in April, so there’s no real reason that Stiles should be sweating this so early, but, God help him, he is. He’s torn straight through two composition notebooks already, trying to find the right twist to put on his notorious disdain of Liam and his distaste for the way their relationship started, but everything keeps coming out too mean and too honest.

So he tries to focus on Malia-- on how vital she is, how much he relies on her, how happy he is to see her happy… But it makes it sound like he’s trying to steal her back right out from under Liam’s nose, so that doesn’t work, either.

It’s enough to make him want to throw in the towel, but Malia is family-- just like Scott, Melissa, and Stiles’s dad. She was the first person other than Scott who accepted Stiles completely, never shied away from embarrassing things he did or let go of his hand in public when he said the wrong things. He wanted, for a long, long time, for them to be together forever.

And they’re going to be, probably, just... not romantically. Now all Stiles has to do is put all of his feelings about that into a speech meant to send Malia off towards her future with Liam, and he can’t seem to make that happen without being a dick.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says when he calls Scott.

“Can’t you just quote a Dr. Seuss book and call it a day?” Scott asks. “Isn’t that what people do?”

“Scott, one day you are going to be the best man at my wedding, and I need you to know that I will never speak to you again if you quote a Dr. Seuss book in your speech.”

Down the line, Scott groans. “Don’t remind me. I hope you and Derek take things, like, glacially slow so I don’t have to worry about that for another five or ten years.”

Stiles pauses, surprised. Sure, Derek’s his soulmate, and yeah their bond is probably a romantic one (the jury’s still not all in on that one, but Stiles has a pretty damn good hunch), but the fact that they’re probably going to get _married_ one day has never occurred to him.

“Dude,” he breathes, winded.

Scott says, “Um, too soon?”

“Majorly too soon.”

“Sorry. I just meant that I don’t want to write any speeches. I’m not good at public speaking, with all those eyes on me… expecting... “ he makes a noise like he’s shuddering. “When I have to talk to patients I just do what comes naturally.”

“You just wing it while telling people that they’re going to die?” 

“Hey, doing what comes naturally isn’t the same thing as winging it!” Scott insists. “Winging it sounds like I’m being flippant.”

“Alright, yeah, I get that, but that doesn’t help me give this speech.”

“You have until April, right?” Scott asks. “Dude, it’s not even October yet! Give it some time. It’ll come naturally.”

“Only if I start liking Liam naturally,” Stiles mutters darkly. “Which, frankly, doesn’t look promising.”

Scott and Liam may have a big dumb Brotherly bond thing going on, but he and Stiles have a deal that basically says _Stiles gets to complain all he wants when he’s upset about the guy his ex ditched him for and Scott, as his best friend, will resist the urge to argue._ Scott’s instinct may tell him to be Devil’s Advocate, but in this they’ve agreed to disagree.

“Don’t stress about this, Stiles,” Scott says. “Think about it, yeah, and look at your options. But don’t stress. You’ll do great.”

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles sighs. 

“I have to go bring Allison’s cameras back to her--”

“Dude, you still haven’t done that?”

“She’s been in Madrid, remember? But I have to bring them back, and I don’t want to drive and talk at the same time, so--”

“Yeah, yeah, see you later. Thanks for calming me down.”

“Anytime, buddy.”

“Drive safe. Let Allison know I really appreciate all her help.”

“Will do.”

The phone clicks off, leaving Stiles alone with his thoughts. The truth of the matter is that between job hunting and his Man of Honor speech, the one he’d rather worry about is… pretty obvious. He’s been making himself half sick with thinking about both things today, though, so he drags himself into his room and collapses on his bed. He’s not even tired, but he’s considering forcing himself to take a nap just to take the edge off.

*

**EWOKS Derek**  
 **How can you even consider any movie the “best Star Wars movie”**  
 **If it doesn’t have ewoks???**

**A New Hope is the best, most concise story.**  
 **It can stand by itself.**

**OH SHIT pause**  
 **Upsetting realization I just had**  
 **You aren’t a Luke and Leia fan are you?**

**[...]**

**?????????????????????????????????????????????**

**[...]**

**NOPE sorry soulmateship officially called off**  
 **Hand x Leia forever man**  
 **Han** holy shit**  
 **Though I guess hand could work too**  
 **Heh**

**[...]**

**I won’t apologize for being HILARIOUS**

*

Stiles could tell Derek about his desperation to find a new job and his anxiety over being Malia’s man of honor. He could tell him about the way his dad’s graying hair makes him feel panicked all over if he focuses too much on it. He could ask Derek if it’s hard, ever, having to wake up every day knowing that what little privacy he’s allowed in his life could be breached on a whim by anyone determined enough. Stiles could ask if Derek thinks that he could ever retire, if he would retire if life in the spotlight became too much for his soulmate.

He could ask. Maybe he _should_ ask. He thinks about asking while he lays awake in the middle of the morning, with sun filling every corner of his apartment, when he should be willing himself to go to sleep before he has to go to work again.

He wants to ask.

He never does.

*

“So, how’s job hunting going?” his dad asks while they’re sitting around, drinking beer, and waiting for the coals to ash. The first cool snap of the autumn has come in unseasonably early, on the tail end of September, and they’re both layered up for their Sunday night football barbeque with the McCalls.

“It’s… going,” Stiles lies.

His dad takes a swig of his beer. “It’ll happen, kiddo,” he says, clapping Stiles on the shoulder with his free hand. “Just give it some time. You’ll see.”

“Yeah, I know.” Stiles says absently with no feeling behind the words and he watches he coals go gray.

*

  

  

  

### OCTOBER

In the throes of an evening thunderstorm, Stiles comes dripping into work and finds Caitlin perched on the corner of his desk, her feet hooked into the armrests of his chair. 

“Hey, you,” she says, grinning.

Stiles outright gapes. “Holy shit, you’re back?” Last he’d heard, she’d been in Canada on company business. “What are you doing down here with the fourth shifters?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she points out. “Last I heard you were working nine-to-five, living the dream. How’s it going?”

He frowns. “Can I say it’s awful without sounding like a drama queen?”

She grins at him, warm and bright, and kicks her feet out of his chair so he can drop down into it. “Not at all,” she tells him. “Lucky for you, I remember what it was like wearing that headset. Be as dramatic as you want-- I won’t judge.”

“Well, it’s awful. Henry basically told me I needed to get a new job before I lost this one, then he stuck me on night shift, so.”

Caitlin’s expression drops instantly. “What? Lose your-- no way. Why?”

He gives her a flat look. “Because I suck? My customer interaction ratings are at rock bottom. Apparently, solving the issue isn’t enough if I can’t tell them how _‘sorry_ ’ I am that their computer is being throttled by viruses and if I can’t let them know ‘ _I’ve been through that before_.’” He uses air quotes liberally, meanly.

“We’ve had non-empathetic techs before,” she says. “Surely you’re--”

“I do too much and I take too much time doing too much, too,” he grumbles, turning his back to her to log into his computer. “If there’s a stat other than ‘ _resolved the issue_ ,’ I’m flunking it. Spectacularly. You don’t even want to hear the Word-for-Words on my reviews.”

“Oh, Stiles,” she breathes. “I’m so sorry. Do you want me to--”

“No, it’s okay,” he cuts her off. His voice sounds hollow even to him, but he pushes through anyway. “I’m looking at other jobs, and I think I might actually be happier doing a lot of them. All that’s stopping me is how all of them require four-plus years of experience before I can even qualify for an entry-level position, which is stupid.”

“Seriously,” she insists. “Just say the word, and I’ll see what we can do about getting you elevated to somewhere internally.”

He bows his shoulders, slumping. “That’d be-- if you could do that? That’d be awesome. I’m not even sure where to begin job hunting right now, honestly.”

“Yeah, of course. Anything I can do, I want to do. I know how tough it is.”

But she doesn’t know the half of it, Stiles thinks. Job hunting is one thing, but Stiles has to think about Derek on top of job hunting, and Derek is rooted in Los Angeles. This thing between them is too new for Stiles to pick up his entire life and move south on a whim, but moving to Oregon or Idaho for a job is equally out of the question. 

Besides-- fourth shift is the actual worst. 

“Hey, the big two-five is coming up soon, isn’t it?” she asks, seamlessly steering the conversation away from everything that’s been stressing Stiles out for the past month.

He nods, straightening in his seat. “Next month, yeah.” She opens her mouth to say something, but he puts his hands up to cut her off. “It’s a milestone, so Scotty’s got the wheel on this one. If you’ve got ideas, they have to go through him.”

She closes her mouth slowly, looking bewildered and endeared in one breath. “You two are so weird,” she says eventually, fond.

He shrugs. “It’s tradition.”

Caitlin’s smile is bright and thoughtful. “Well, I will definitely keep that in mind and give Scott a call as soon as I get a chance.” She pushes off his desk and starts straightening out her skirtsuit. “I have to head upstairs, let the powers that be know about the Montreal pitch, and get my ass back home to Emily before she knows I got back and went to work before coming home.”

Stiles looks at her, unimpressed. “She’s going to know anyway. She always knows. She’s going to smell fluorescent lights on you and you’re going to be in trouble again.”

“Probably,” she allows, grimacing. “But coming in now means I have four days off, uninterrupted, and she can’t argue with that.” 

She winks at him, and he laughs. “Go, go,” he says, waving her off, “I have computers to fix and customers to-- evidently-- make miserable, and I haven’t even clocked in yet thanks to you.”

“Going, going,” she says, rebuttoning her blazer. “I’ll see what I can find for you in other departments. Henry may not vouch for you, but I will. You’re practically family.”

“Is that nepotism?” Stiles asks, wry.

“Who gives a fuck?” she asks over her shoulder, sauntering away.

Of course, no sooner is she gone than the terrible twins show up.

“Morning, Stilinski,” Garrett drawls as he settles into the seat to Stiles’s right.

“How’s the job hunt going?” Violet sneers, voice saccharine as she takes the chair to his left.

Stiles offers her his shittiest tight-lipped smirk. “Great, actually. Not that that’s any of your business.”

“Remind me how ‘not my business’ it is when our team ranking is released,” Garrett bites out. He’s got his keyboard in his lap, his feet kicked up on the desk and a resentful glower directed at Stiles.

“And when my bonus is about a hundred and fifty shy of what it could be,” Violet adds as she pulls her headset over her hair.

Caught between the pair of them and their shitty attitudes day after day, week after week would be enough to drive a lesser man to ulcers. As it is, they just put a bad taste in Stiles’s mouth and leave him feeling twitchy, ready to lash out for hours after his shift ends. It’s nothing Scott doesn’t know how to defuse, but other people haven’t been so lucky in the past.

“Did no one ever teach you two dickweeds that there’s no ‘I’ in team?” he snaps.

“Oh, so there’s no room for ‘I’ in team,” Violet hisses, “but I guess there’s plenty of space for ‘ _deadweight’_.”

The first whisper tone of the evening sounds over his headset, so Violet gets the last word-- as usual. Stiles takes a deep breath and braces himself.

*

**So not to pressure you or anything**  
 **But I turn 25 on November 23 this year**  
 **My buddy Scott's planning everything but I still have time to get your name on the guest list before he totally Rambos over everything**

**I'll take a look at my schedule for November.**  
 **We'll see.**

*

Stiles locks his phone and rubs at his chest, right over his heart that had clenched and shuddered and climbed up into his throat as he drafted and trashed and redrafted texts meant to invite Derek to his twenty-fifth birthday party.

His heart has settled now, but there's a bad taste in his mouth and a sour mood hanging low around him, his own personal storm cloud. It's-- he shouldn't be bitter or annoyed. Derek's a freaking celebrity, and he has contracts and he has an entire team of people responsible for making sure he shows up at the right place at the right time blah blah blah. He texts Stiles throughout his days, when he can, and usually explains when he can’t. 

It's unreasonable, Stiles tries to reason as he gets up and slips his phone into his pocket, wandering aimlessly through his apartment-- opening and shutting cabinets in the kitchenette, patting the cushions down on the couch, opening the window to the fire escape only to recoil at the smell wafting up from below where someone has left the stupid fucking dumpster open _again,_ Jesus Christ. 

He slams the window shut and collapses against it, the childish part of him thinking that he has a right to see Derek, that he's entitled to Derek's time simply because he's Derek's soulmate. There's something very appealing about throwing in the towel and going into a good ole fashioned sulk, but no matter how tempted Stiles may be to throw a tantrum about this, he knows it's not Derek's fault. Derek’s life hasn’t been his own for a long, long time-- well before he knew who Stiles was, certainly.

Stiles just always thought it would be easier than this.

Growing up, he never dreamed of finding out that his soulmate was rich or famous. As a kid, he just wanted someone to _be there_. Later, as a teenager, he just wanted someone to love him back with even half the fervor he loved them. And as an adult-- with Malia-- he just wanted companionship, someone who understood him. Which he thought he had until, well.

Now he's met his soulmate, and in the months that have passed he has none of the things he thought he'd have. Nothing that he's ever wanted.

He's been able to learn little pieces of Derek through their texting-- Derek's favorite Star Wars movie, his inability to work an espresso machine that Lydia bought him for Christmas a while back, his severe peanut allergy, and the handful of odd jobs he had before he came into acting.

But they still haven't talked about the things that they both know Stiles knows-- about Derek's dad and his sister, mainly. Anything and everything about Derek's family has been carefully dodged in their conversations, which is fine because Stiles hasn't felt any desire to mention his mother, her death, or the subsequent hell he and his father went through after her passing.

And Stiles isn't quite sure, still, how to bring up the things he learned about Derek the first time they touched-- about how much Derek loves history, about the paintings Stiles saw hung up on the wall he didn't recognize, about the way Kate Argent had untied her wrap dress before his eyes, her mouth curling meanly. He’s equally unwilling to come forward about the precarious position he’s in with his job-- something like shame twists his gut like a wrung out sponge every time he thinks about broaching that particular failure of his.

Conversation with Derek is more or less like a minefield, and Stiles lives in perpetual anxiety of stepping on some topic that will irrevocably change the way Derek thinks of him. It's not something Stiles has any experience with-- period. Minding his mouth and not saying exactly what he wants to say, when he wants to say it has never been his MO.

But there's a small, cruel voice in the back of his head now reminding him that this is it. That if he screws this up, he'll have to live the rest of his life knowing that he was the stupid bastard who repelled his own goddamn soulmate.

So he holds his tongue-- or his fingers, as the case may be, since neither he nor Derek have made any attempts to call each other so far.

The small talk-- the funny jokes, the shared memories, the debates about movies or music or the freakin’ weather-- is _great_. The brief glimpses into each other’s worlds that texting affords them are like an oasis in a freaking desert, but it’s been almost two months since Stiles last dreamed of Derek, just as long since he saw Derek. 

Is it selfish to want _more_? 

The wind outside Stiles's apartment rattles the fire escape window, and when he looks outside the sky overhead is gray and dreary. It won't rain (it almost never rains), but it feels a helluvalot like the pathetic fallacy, which rankles. 

With a sigh, he pushes off the window and drags himself to bed, collapsing face first onto it. The sun is climbing high in the sky just beyond the cloud cover, stretching towards noon and casting a vague line of pale sunshine across Stiles’s mattress. For a long time he just lays there, breathing under the gloomy natural light and feeling sorry for himself. Sleep will make him feel better, and on the other side of being well-rested, the semi-rejection from Derek probably won’t sting quite so bad. 

He lays there, willing his mind to quiet, and doesn’t stir until his phone starts to buzz in his pocket. Then he groans and gropes blindly in his pocket, answering the call before he’s fully registered that it's from an unknown number.

"Hello?" 

"Is this Stiles?" a feminine voice asks down the line.

Stiles rolls himself over onto his back. "Who's asking?"

"Lydia Martin-- Derek's handler? We met in Los Angeles."

***

> _“The Hale family has something of a remarkable record of soulbonds, to say the least. Laura Hale was killed in 1999 in a car accident crafted by the man who had previously falsified a soulbond for nearly half a decade. Cora Hale, the youngest sibling, only two years ago registered herself as part of an exceptionally rare three-piece, platono-romantic mixed bond with actor Vernon Milton Boyd IV and a convicted felon-turned-makeup artist._
> 
> _“In light of his sisters’ bond experiences, there’s always been speculation about Derek. His father and older sister passed away before he began acting, and his younger sister seemingly met one of her soulmates because of Derek’s role in_ Diamond Interchange _, allegedly while still underage. There’s a lot of mythos, if you will, built up around him. I think it’s perfectly understandable that people are curious.”_
> 
> _“Curious is one thing, Dr. Valack, but it’s been almost two months, and we’re still seeing nonstop tweets, paparazzi photos and news stories about his mark, speculation about his soulmate… It seems unreasonable, doesn’t it? Certainly invasive. What do you think, Dr. Fenris? Is there a limit to the curiosity we should be allowed for Derek Hale and his soulmark?”_
> 
> _“Well, you would hope so, and the kinder thing for me to do would be to let you go on believing that. But the truth of the matter is: the public doesn’t care. Too often, celebrity lives become little more than commodities to us, and instead of viewing these people as just that-- people-- we see them as things that exist solely for our entertainment and for our interests. And when they resist that expectation, we consider them selfish, rude, and all manner of unflattering things._
> 
> _“That Derek Hale’s soulmark was exposed and was allowed to be circulated by mass media is a gross example of this behavior. Regardless of whether or not our rampant curiosity is_ understandable, _I do think, yes, that there should be a limit, and that these actions should be punishable under the law.”_
> 
> _“We’ll return at the top of the hour with Dr. Valack’s rebuttal to that. In the meantime-- what do you think? Give us a call to be on the air. You’re listening to_ Afternoon Delight _.”_
> 
> (- from a broadcasted radio discussion on NPR's "Afternoon Delight" on October 15, 2014)

***

The first thing Scott notices when he turns onto his street is that Stiles’s Jeep is in his apartment complex’s parking lot. When he gets closer, he can see that Stiles pulled into the spot at an angle and is taking up two spaces at once. He frowns at the sight of it, worried, and takes care to park his Honda just outside of his unit and uses his fob to lock the doors after he’s at his door, turning the handle to get inside.

Stiles is sitting at Scott’s late abuela’s dining room table, a brown paper bag in one hand with a _Maker’s Mark_ handle peeking out of the top and a stack of papers strewn out before him.

When Stiles looks at him, it’s with a miserable twist of his lips, a mockery of a smirk. “Sorry,” he says, like it’s a joke he has with himself. “Since you’re the only person on earth under the age of sixty who owns his own fax machine, I had to hijack it.”

Scott closes the door behind him. “Job stuff?” he asks, cautious. 

Stiles snorts derisively. “I wish. That would probably be less humiliating.”

He takes a swig from the bottle in his little brown bag, and Scott twists the deadbolt shut with a sinking feeling. When he moves further into the apartment, closer to the table where Stiles has spread the papers out before him, he recognizes them as legal documents.

“These aren’t the real deal,” Stiles assures him, sounding bitter. “Just a preview. She’s going to send a lawyer with the real ones and for the notarizing, as you do.”

“Notarizing?” Scott asks, taking a seat and using his palm to turn the closest sheet to him around on the table. He looks at it with narrowed eyes, then looks back up at Stiles. “Mutual confidentiality agreement?” he asks, baffled. “Did _Derek_ send this to you?”

Stiles glowers. “Lydia did, which is pretty much the same thing, right?” 

Scott’s not so sure he agrees, but that seems beside the point. He looks down at the pages under his hands. “It’s been over two months,” he says, confused.

Stiles’s mouth is little more than an unhappy slash across his face, his lips have thinned so much. Scott can’t face it for long, the evidence of his best friend’s temper and hurt _right there_ , so he averts his gaze down. 

“I know,” Stiles spits. “Believe me, I’ve thought _at length_ about the timing of this bullshit.”

They sit in silence, Stiles brimming with the sort of sadness that makes his temper burn hot, that makes him downright mean. Scott’s never known what to _say_ when Stiles gets like this, but he knows how to be there, how to stick around if Stiles ever asks for anything or needs to vent.

When Scott looks back up at him, Stiles has his elbow propped on the table top, and he’s pressing the heel of his palm to his brow. Because he’s looking for it, Scott can see the furious tremble of Stiles’s chin from across the table, the embarrassed-angry red of the tips of his ears. In the low lighting of Scott’s apartment, Stiles looks more like his father than he ever has before.

Scott asks, “Mutual confidentiality? What’s that about?” and Stiles blows a raspberry, waves dismissively at him like he can knock the very thought out of the air with a flick of his wrist.

“Basically their promise that they won’t sell my identity to the press for a few headlines,” he bites out. “Which-- you’ll notice-- still benefits them even while it’s helping me, so.”

Scott doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. Instead he reaches across the table and holds Stiles’s wrist, rubbing at the bones there gently, trying to soothe.

Stiles slumps against his touch and looks at him, looking equal parts angry and sad. “You know, I’m not really mad about these,” he says.

Scott gives him a look.

“Okay,” Stiles concedes, ducking his head and looking away. “So these stung a little, yeah. But I’m really, _really_ pissed that he had her call me instead of doing it himself. I had _just_ texted him, and he responded! We’ve been texting for weeks, but he didn’t say _anything_. I don’t think I said anything that could have like, uh, mortally offended him? But what the fuck do I know, I also thought we were past the point of him needing to legally bind me into shutting the hell up, so.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott says, meaning it.

Stiles sighs and scrubs his free hand over his head, laughs a little-- humorless. “I’m so mad at him, holy shit.”

“This is pretty shitty,” Scott agrees. “Maybe I won’t send him an invite to your party, after all.”

Stiles’s expression darkens even further, and he puts the whiskey on the table with a thunk. Scott winces, aware that he’s accidentally stepped into the core of Stiles’s ire.

Before he can apologize for it, Stiles shakes himself, snatches the papers off the table, and says, “Whatever. I’ll-- this sucks, but it’s not the end of the world or anything. I actually got something good out of being humiliated this time, so.”

“Really,” Scott says, eyebrows climbing.

Stiles smirks at him-- it’s weak, but real, without any of the biting edge he’s had since Scott came inside. “Yeah, man. I got Lydia’s phone number for you.”

Scott blinks, blindsided. 

He-- Lydia--

Well.

He’s not ready to address what he and Lydia could have or could be. It’s somewhere on the edge of his awareness, and if he knows that if he looks at it, _really_ looks at it, he won’t look away until he’s worried himself sick with things he can’t control. The part of him that’s still desperately in love with Allison resents everything about Lydia Martin, but the more rational part of him knows--

He’s not sure what he knows. But Lydia doesn’t deserve his resentment. And Stiles doesn’t deserve half of Scott’s attention tonight, when he’s still clearly upset but doing his best to pack the feelings away.

So Scott rolls his eyes, smiles, and gets to his feet. Instead of addressing what Stiles said, he suggests, “We should watch _Star Wars_.”

The look Stiles gives him features bulging eyes and a slack mouth. Scott stares seriously right back at him until Stiles snaps his mouth shut with a clack of his teeth and glares, suspiciously, back at him. Whatever Stiles is looking for he must not find because he relaxes a little, resigned, and says, “Well, guess I can’t hate Derek’s guts for the rest of eternity if his stupid choices have given me this.”

“That’s the spirit,” Scott says, grinning.

***

“Absolutely not,” Lydia says before he can even get the question out.

Derek glares at his phone, imagining she can feel the weight of it down the line. He’s been feeling unusually restless and irritable for _days_ now, and this isn’t helping. “You didn’t hear what I--”

“I heard ‘ _Stiles’s birthday is next month_ ’ and, frankly, that’s all I need.”

“Lydia--” he tries.

“Derek, for two seconds could you think about this from my point of view?” she snaps. “You’re about to ask me if you can go celebrate with him and his friends in his one-horse town, not even three months after you had your face and soulmark splashed across the tabloids. What do you think is going to happen if someone recognizes you in Beacon Hills? You can’t exactly blend into the crowd there when there _is no crowd_ , can you?”

“So you want me to be happy with saying ‘Happy Birthday’ to my _soulmate_ over text message,” he says, his tone flat, his fingers trembling. He feels his frustration like a livewire, making him jittery and strung out.

“You can always call him,” she says, too pleasant, and he has to fight the temptation to throw his phone at the wall; his fingers grip his phone tightly enough that his knuckles go white. “Or he can come here. At least here no one’s going to look twice at him, no one knows _to_ look for him. He was at the _Aurora_ premiere sitting right next to you and none of the press noticed because you spent the hour after talking to Braeden.”

There’s something smug in her tone, and Derek’s reminded suddenly of being pushed, her voice in his ear hissing _go rub elbows_.

He runs a hand down his face, feeling himself deflate a little, and says, “That was clever of you.”

She says, “I know. That’s why you have me around. Because I’m clever, and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you’re safe. And I’m telling you do not-- _do not_ let me hear that you’re considering going to Beacon Hills or I swear I will give you a contracted event every day for the month of November. Don’t think I won’t.”

He clenches his jaw, feeling like a trapped animal. She has him all but cornered. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” she says, then promptly hangs up.

Three minutes later, he gets a text message from her. It reads: _The NDAs are drawn. Haigh’s taking them to Stiles a week from tomorrow._

Derek’s mouth twists into a frown; he’d-- completely forgotten about those. His mistake. He sends back: _Does it have to be Haigh?_

Lydia’s response is almost immediate: _Is you sister willing to do it?_

It’s… not a bad idea, actually. Cora wouldn’t like it, but if he asked her to, and if he told her it was between her and an asshole like _Haigh_ , she wouldn’t say no. But the thought of Cora meeting Stiles without Derek being there to defend himself makes Derek feel vaguely nauseated. He loves his sister, but he also knows that no one makes a worse first impression than Cora.

_I’ll ask her_ , he sends back. Then, after a beat: _I’m still not sure I want this._

_Trust me,_ Lydia texts, _you want this_.

Derek’s been trusting Lydia with everything for the last three years, so it’s easy, now, to keep doing just that.

*

That night, in his bed, Derek lays awake, still restless, and tries to understand why he’s so _upset_. He wants to claw at the walls, tear at his hair, kick over desks and break tables and smash lamps against the floor and--

He realizes with a start exactly what’s happened. It’s been so long since he last dreamed of Stiles that he had forgotten, almost, what it was like to experience a premonition. 

He lays awake for a long time after that, his fingers itching towards his phone where it lays on his nightstand and that insatiable fury licking up his spine, making him feel wild in its burning and then, when it flickers out, cold and hollow in its wake.

Every time he reaches out, thinking he’ll ask what’s happened, he hears the ghost of Stiles’s voice in his ear saying _Don’t_.

*

Cora, Boyd, and Erica live together in a modern-style townhouse that’s all straight lines, black granite and white marble facing, and glass. The interior is filled with little bits and pieces of their different lives, but the first floor is largely Cora’s office. She’s nowhere to be found when Boyd lets Derek in.

“Hey, man,” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “Looking for your sister?”

“Is she here?” Derek asks, slipping inside and taking a look around. “The place looks different.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna turn the dining room into Cora’s office now that she’s got her license to practice. But you didn’t hear it from me, and Cora’s not gonna hear it from you, alright? As far as she knows we just want to paint the walls or fix the caulking or something.”

Derek’s lips twitch. “Or something,” he agrees.

Boyd claps him on the shoulder. “I think the girls are both in the Bungalow. That’s where they were when I last saw them, anyway.”

“How long ago was that?” Derek asks, tone wry.

Boyd’s lips twitch. “Four hours give or take.”

“You’re not going to join them?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head and grabs his keys from the hook by the door. “I’ve got some stuff to hammer out with Marin in about an hour, so I gotta get going soon. But if you’re headed up that way, you should save yourself a second trip and bring two Coronas up with you.”

“Will do,” Derek assures him, and, with a big, bright smile, Boyd lets himself out the front door, leaving Derek to navigate to the back of the first floor to go rummaging through the fridge for the Coronas, then to make his way up to the Bungalow.

The Bungalow is the nickname of the patio that stretches off from their town house’s fourth floor, where Boyd has taken up something vaguely garden-like, where Erica’s likes to let her paper mache pieces dry, and where Cora has carefully cultivated a wide array of grilling equipment and enough liquor behind the bar to keep them all drunk for several months on end if they so desired.

When he finds them, they’re stretched out on two lounge chairs, soaking up the sun with their hair kept in ponytails pulled to the top of their heads and oversized sunglasses hiding their eyes. Erica sees him first and pushes herself upright, stretches her arms overhead, and makes a pleased noise.

“You’re an _angel_ ,” she coos when he passes her one of the beers.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Cora warns, pulling her glasses down her face but not bothering to sit up to face him. She takes the beer he offers her just the same. “He _wants_ something.”

“Maybe I just _want_ to visit you,” he tries.

“No, she’s right,” Erica agrees with a mild pout, settling back down against her chair and crossing her ankles. “You’ve never come out to visit us _just because,_ and just looking at those bags under your eyes makes me want to take a nap. What gives?”

Cora sets her beer on the small table next to her, throws her legs over the side of her chair and gets to her feet, and takes a closer look at Derek. “You look like hell, Derek.”

“Thanks,” he says with a sigh. “I think Stiles is mad at me.”

Erica’s brow furrows. She asks, “Stiles--?”

“The soulmate,” Cora answers, still looking at Derek. “Why is he mad at you?”

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to express _I don’t actually know that he_ is _mad at me, I just have a feeling, and it kept me up all night,_ so he casts his eyes down and slouches a little, defeated.

“Oh,” she mutters, and she puts her hand on his elbow. “Okay, let’s-- let’s sit? And get you something to drink. Something strong.”

“On it,” Erica volunteers, and she’s back on her feet and heading into the house before Derek can protest.

“Boyd keeps some dark liquor downstairs,” Cora tells him, and she pats his knee in an awkward attempt at comforting him. The two of them aren’t built much for comforting and assuring-- too much of their dad’s clumsiness and their mom’s bullheadedness split between them-- but Derek appreciates her all the more for trying. 

When Erica comes back, she passes Derek a tumbler full of something amber-colored that smells like cinnamon. He grimaces at it and at Cora in turn.

She puts her hands up and says, smirking, “I didn’t say he had _good_ dark liquor. Drink up.”

He makes a vague _uh-huh_ noise from the back of his throat, then takes a gulp. Fireball always tastes the same-- like someone dissolved ten packs of Big Red chewing gum in a bottle of rubbing alcohol. It’s easier to get it over with quick-- no one _sips on_ Fireball. Definitely not Derek.

“So what happened with Stiles?” Erica asks when he finishes the glass.

Much like the Fireball, it’s best for Derek get his confession with as quickly as possible. He takes a breath and says, “I told Lydia she could send him and his friends NDAs.”

The reaction from Erica is instantaneous: eyes wide under a furrowed, unhappy brow, jaw dropping, disapproval etched into every line of her face. Cora just nods once, considering.

“Wait--” she says, her eyes going sharp, “he’s been back in God-knows-where--”

“Beacon Hills,” Derek supplies.

“-- since _August_ without any legally-binding behavioral agreement?” she finishes, incredulous. “ _Derek_.”

“He’s my soulmate,” he tries.

“And you’re an actor in the midst of a minor soulbonding scandal!”

“I trust him.”

Cora’s on her feet, pulling at her hair and laughing humorlessly, dramatically. “Oh, well if you _trust him_ , nevermind. It’s not like we have any reason to _not_ trust someone who shows up in your life out of the blue and says they’re your soulmate, right?”

Derek gets to his feet after her, grip tight on the tumbler. “Don’t-- you know this isn’t the same.”

“Do I, Derek?” she demands, rounding on him. “Do I really know it’s different, or do I just know that you don’t think it could happen to you just because it happened to Laura? Lightning never strikes the same place twice, right?” Her voice is mocking, but her fury doesn’t do much to hide the panic rising inside of her. “And what about me? What about Erica and Boyd? Don’t you owe it to _them_ to have those contracts? To me?”

Erica makes a harsh noise. “Cora,” she snaps, her own eyes narrowed. “I think you need to sit down.”

“Don’t tell me to sit down!” 

That’s his cue if he’s ever heard one, so Derek turns and sets his glass on a small table beside the lounge chairs and says, “I’m going to go. Thanks for the drink.”

Before Cora can get a word in edgewise, he slips out of the bungalow and jogs down the three separate staircases it takes to get from the fourth floor to the first floor. On the second floor, Erica catches up to him, her ponytail limp and frazzled now, her cheeks pink from the sun.

“Derek,” she says. 

“I’m sorry,” he admits, his jaw clenched. For what? Picking a fight with Cora in front of her? Keeping Lydia off the subject of NDAs for nearly eight weeks because of a _feeling_ he had? Showing up at her house uninvited? Who knows. He doesn’t.

She sighs. “Look,” she tries, then pauses. It takes her a few seconds to rally, and Derek waits them out stiffly. “I know you and Stiles text, I saw you doing it at work and all, but have you guys-- have you _talked_?”

“Talked,” Derek echoes, voice flat. He’s pretty sure texting counts as talking-- it’s certainly having conversations, right? 

But she must read him like a book because she says, “Texting and talking aren’t the same-- they’re close, but it’s not the same. Especially if there’s been a misunderstanding.”

He gives her a dry look.

“ _Trust me_ on this,” she insists. “I know a little bit about what happens when you’re an average kid on the streets who finds out her soulmate is-- you know.”

Right, Derek thinks. He forgets more often than he should that in the beginning Erica didn’t live here. She comes from Redding and spent time in a federal prison because of the sheer _volume_ of prescription pills she was dishonestly obtaining and selling to her college friends. Boyd visited her using his Rite to introduce himself to her while she was wearing a gaudy orange jumpsuit. It’s a far cry from “normal,” but it’s-- something. A different perspective. 

He relents, his body going slack, and nods at her to go on.

She releases a breath she must have been holding and blows a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail off of her face. “Alright. You have a laptop at your place, right?”

The glare he sends her could melt glaciers.

She just smiles back, her teeth sharp. “Just checking. Got your keys? It’ll probably be best if we do this there.”

*

Erica works magic on Derek’s Toshiba, which he got back in 2010 when Windows 7 was new and exciting. He hasn’t turned it on in over a year-- he can access everything he needs from his phone-- and there was a little concern beforehand that the battery had fully died and no amount of charging would be able to turn it on again.

Fortunately that's not the case. Erica wipes the dust off the screen with all the tenderness she gives to her makeup removal, and when she presses the power button the processor whirrs awake like a plane taking off.

“That’s what I like to hear!” she says triumphantly. “You ask him yet?”

“No answer,” Derek lies-- the text is still waiting to be sent, and he’s been staring at it for nearly ten minutes, trying to swallow his anxiety down like a horse pill.

She shrugs. “We can get you all set up and I can get out of your hair before you guys connect. We’ll do a few test runs with my phone.”

He only grasps about 85% of the concept she’s laying out for him, but he knows enough about how video chatting works. He watches while Erica walks through the steps of getting Skype installed on his computer, muttering to herself about Derek’s computer speed and the fact that he still has Windows Live Messenger installed.

“This was shut down over a year ago,” she huffs the third time a WLM notification pops up and interrupts the Skype download.

Derek rolls his eyes. “You mean around the time I _stopped_ using this thing?” he asks, not without a little mocking edge in his tone.

“Excuses and assholes, Derek,” she says in a sagely voice.

He gives her his most baffled-irritable look-- one that he likely picked up from a soaking wet cat for how uncanny he knows the resemblance to be. There’s no way he could even begin to parse that.

“Everyone has them, and they all stink,” she explains, looking all too pleased with herself.

He snorts and shakes his head. Erica does this to him a lot-- catches him by surprise and leaves him amused despite himself.

“Okay, you get to pick your username now,” she says as she passes his laptop over to him. “Don’t embarrass me-- I didn’t get you this far only for you to pick something like hotrod69.”

He makes a show of smashing on the backspace key, and she cracks up and shoves at him like the joy of laughing has offended her somehow. It’s-- nice, he finds. Having Erica in his space like this, joking with him. 

He types in dsh1984, shows Erica, and she nods her approval.

“Very Orwellian,” she muses. “Also unoriginal, but that’s okay.”

The process of setting up his Skype account includes getting a blurry picture that Erica wrestles him into taking with is computer’s built-in webcam that only vaguely resembles him for all he’s shying away from her, grinning and laughing as she whacks him with a pillow. It’s cute, but it’s also not immediately recognizable as _him_. He kind of loves it.

“Alright, so now you find me. I’m _ereyesica_ \-- E-R-E-Y-E-S-I-C-A,” she says slowly, lingering on each letter for a second longer than Derek needs. “There I am.” She points at her picture where she’s posed in between Boyd and Cora, and Boyd’s long arm is in the shot where he’s taken a selfie of the three of them, all smiles and flushed cheeks, sunshine stretched across their faces.

She rummages in her purse and pulls out her phone. “Now try to call me. Let’s take this baby for a test spin.”

The call connects smoothly, though Derek’s webcam isn’t the best quality. Erica walks upstairs to his bedroom where they test his microphone to make sure she can hear him even when she’s not beside him. She ends the call after a few minutes and comes back downstairs.

“Seems like you’re all set,” she says, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it. For what, he wonders? For not taking Cora’s side immediately even though she had every reason to? For helping him set up a way of _seeing_ Stiles and possibly straightening out the tension that’s cropped up, stretched over the hundreds of miles between them? For taking his mind off the cloying irritability he hasn’t been able to shake for days now?

He’s not certain, but he’s pretty sure it’s a little bit of everything.

“Anytime,” Erica says, looking like she means it. She checks her phone. “That’s Boyd-- he’s here. I better not keep him waiting on a game night.”

Then, like she’s daring herself to do it, she breaks forward and wraps Derek in her arms for a brief, awkward hug. Derek’s too startled by the sudden contact to respond before she lets go, steps back, and looks up at him, suddenly shy.

“Go get him, Tiger,” she says. 

She closes the door behind her when she goes, leaving Derek behind-- baffled, but also warm.

***

It’s half past two on Sunday when Stiles gets a text from Derek. For the entirety of the week since Lydia’s call about the NDA’s, he’s been aggressively ignoring the bland attempts Derek keeps making at small talk with no small amount of malice. By this point it’s all but habit for him to pull his phone out and grimace at Derek’s name when a text comes through.

This text, however, catches him off guard enough that he stops mid-pace across his apartment and stares at it.

“The fuck?” he asks eventually. 

It reads: _Do you have Skype?_

And of course it comes through _just as_ Stiles was about to slip out the door to his weekly barbeque with his family. Of _course_ it does. Now he’s going to spend the rest of the night restless and irritable, chomping at the bit to get back home and demand answers.

In a frenzy of furious finger-taps, Stiles replies.

**you’re such an asshole**  
 **you realize that, right?**  
 **like holy shit**

**[...]**

**my Skype is stinklinkski**  
 **I won’t be home until midnight**

Of course, the way his fingers are twitching and his head is still sort of spinning doesn’t bode well for his self control. The way he figures, it’s pretty damn likely that he’ll end up faking a stomach bug and come home a few hours early to shout across a video feed at his stupid, selfish soulmate. He’s got enough bitter feelings in him that he’s starting to feel like a shaken-up 2 liter of Mountain Dew-- ready to burst at the first sign of release.

He half wants Derek to reply and half doesn’t want to spend the rest of his evening worrying if Derek _doesn’t_ reply. The latter wins out and he pitches his phone across the room, where it lands with a risky bounce on his bed. Then he steps out of his apartment, locking the door-- and, behind it, his only tie to Derek-- before he leaves.

*

That night, Melissa clears her throat and pauses the DVR so she can step in front of the TV and address Stiles, Scott, and Stiles’s father.

“Mom?” Scott asks.

“Boys,” she says, her hands clapped together in front of her chest and a smile on her face, “I wanted to let you both know that next month, Stiles-- your dad and I are going to be taking a much-needed vacation for a couple of days.”

Scott grins at her. “That’s awesome! Where are you going?” 

Stiles asks, “ _When_ are you going,” unable to keep the edge of suspicion out of his voice. 

She points a finger at Scott, “Still working on that, will get back to you as soon as we know,” and then another finger from her other hand at Stiles, “We’re going to leave Black Friday. We both managed to get a three-day weekend after we put in our requests this month.”

“Black Friday?” Stiles repeats. “Black Friday as in _the day_ before my twenty-fifth birthday? That Black Friday?”

He’s mostly just wanting to bust their balls a little-- it maybe stings a little bit knowing his dad and Melissa are just going to _bounce_ a day before his birthday, but he’s also turning twenty-five, and he should probably get used to birthdays without his dad one of these days.

“Sorry, Stiles,” Melissa says, looking vaguely contrite but also resolved. “I know it’s really inconvenient timing for you, but we haven’t had time to ourselves to do old people things in _years_.”

Scott looks a little nauseated when he mouths _old people things_ at Stiles and Stiles grimaces in return.

“ _Not_ that,” Stiles’s dad interrupts with a sigh and a look of supreme disapproval leveled at them.

Stiles puts his hands up in a _she said it, not us_ gesture, and his dad pushes up onto his feet and stands beside Melissa.

“You’ll notice that this means that our houses will be _empty_ the whole weekend while we’re gone,” Stiles’s dad says, and now his look has become significant, somehow. “And we’re going to be relying on you both to keep an eye on them.”

“Both pairs of eyes,” Melissa adds. “The more eyes the merrier, even.”

Stiles’s suspicion has reached Def Con 2 by this point, and he’s squinting at their parents so narrowly that he can make out his own eyelashes. “Are you saying--”

Scott whacks him in the chest with the back of his hand and says, “No problem, watch the houses, lots and lots of watching the houses. Got it.”

Stiles’s dad looks heavenward in a _God, give me patience_ sort of way, and Melissa has pursed her lips and crossed her arms, looking a little uncomfortable. Eventually she asks, “How about those hot dogs?”

“Woman after my own heart,” Stiles’s dad says, and the two of them make a break for the back porch to escape what they just very, very heavily hinted.

Stiles and Scott, for their part, sit stunned on the couch, staring at the paused football game blankly as they try to parse out what just happened.

“Do we have a party house?” Stiles asks. “Did they just give us permission to have _two party house options_?”

Scott lets out a breath and says, “I think i need to add like a hundred people to the guest list, is that cool?”

“BYOB and only fuck in the guest rooms,” Stiles says immediately. 

Scott snorts. “Only fuck in the guest rooms-- keep dreaming, Stiles.”

*

Quarter-past eleven, Stiles’s dad shoos everyone out of his house so he can properly mourn the loss of his beloved Dolphins, and Stiles takes the long road home around the outside of the Preserve. He’d expected to be preoccupied with thoughts of Derek the whole night, but he’d ended up on another level altogether, thinking about having an honest-to-God _house party_ for his twenty-fifth birthday. 

He feels a little like he’s sixteen again, invited to the cool kids’ place just because he made a lucky shot in the championship game. He plays a jaunty top-40 hit or ten on high volume as he takes the curves of the road one-handed, his hand careful on the gear shift, and his mind finding its way back-- at last-- to Derek and what Stiles is going to face when he gets home.

There’s only so long he can reasonably drag out his drive home, and if he’s being honest, there’s a part of him that’s getting a thrill off the idea of giving Derek a piece of his mind. It’s easy to get lost in the fantasy of what he would say, how quick-witted he’d be with any excuse Derek might have, how unforgiving Stiles intends to be now that he’s had a week to stew in his resentment. He parks Roscoe haphazardly, tears through his complex to get to his apartment, and throws open the door--

Only to be hit with a wave of anxiety-guilt-excitement- _longing_ that’s strong enough to send him stumbling into the room, thrown off his axis by the weight of it all.

He has to put a hand to his chest and pant a little, winded in his surprise, and it takes him a long time-- long for him, anyway, when he usually considers himself on top of this kind of thing-- to realize exactly what’s happening to him.

The clock on the wall reads 11:59, and Derek just passed Stiles all of his stupid, no good emotions, and Stiles can already feel his will to behave like a petulant asshole waning.

He casts a dirty look at his laptop and his phone where they’re sitting on his bed. He resents them for being the only means he has of speaking to his soulmate-- resents that he’s the sorry sonofabitch who has a life hundreds of miles away from his celebrity, that those hundreds of miles start to feel like millions of miles when he considers the differences between his and Derek’s lives.

That resentment doesn’t change, anchors his emotions in the flood of Derek’s. If he focuses on that, he thinks, maybe he can get through this conversation.

He drags his laptop to the kitchen, where he sets it on the bartop, next to the stack of drafted NDAs that he’s held onto-- having the stupid things close should keep him going on self-righteous fury alone even if he feels the need to tap out halfway through their talk and revert back to talking about the weather or some shit. Then he climbs onto the less-wobbly of his two second-hand bar stools he got when he moved in, the bowl of the seat whining and groaning in turn at him as he settles. His shoulders feel tense, his neck sore with exhaustion creeping up his bowed back-- he ignores it all in favor of opening Skype and logging in.

**dsh1984**

_Hi stinklinkski! I’d like to add you on Skype._

_ten hours ago_

Stiles squints at the request-- as a rule he generally distrusts any requests being sent to him from a username that has more numbers than it has letters, but he stares at the _dsh_ with narrowed eyes. At first he’d read it as _dish_ , but with a closer look, he can see that it’s just three letters.

Derek’s initials.

Derek S Hale.

At that, Stiles’s lips twist into a rueful, unhappy line. He still doesn’t know what Derek’s middle name is. Sure, he could probably find it on the internet, but that’s not the _fucking_ point. He clicks the _Add Contact_ button with vindictiveness. 

Then he holds his breath.

He’s not sure what he’s waiting for-- hoping for? But in the minutes that stretch out after he accepts Derek’s request, he works himself into a real resentment about Derek not starting the conversation, becoming bitter about the _idea_ of Derek wanting _Stiles_ to start this conversation, generally being annoyed and frustrated and ready to cuss Derek into next week.

_dsh1984 is inviting you to chat._

Stiles swallows, his throat dry, and joins the conversation.

A glance at his clock tells him it’s 12:15 AM.

The screen flickers a little, and then, before Stiles can register that it’s happening, there Derek is-- fullscreen, hair messy, his deep-v t-shirt looking soft and slept-in, slipping off-center and showing the line of his collar bone. The lighting is low on his end, probably from a single lamp.

“Hey,” Derek breathes-- does his voice sound gruffer? Or is that his microphone? Or has Stiles’s memory of his voice simply eroded with the time and distance between them?

Whatever can be said about his memory, Stiles's temper doesn’t seem to care to differentiate. “Don’t ‘ _hey’_ me," he snaps. "I’m not here to be _‘hey_ ’ed.”

Derek blinks at him, no doubt trying to make sense of Stiles’s mood while clearly still half-asleep. If Stiles could read Derek for shit, he'd think he looked kind of closed off, his shoulders curling in, but Derek's chin is raised and Stiles can't read him anyway, so. “What are you here for then?” he asks Stiles.

Stiles glares. “Like you don’t know.”

“All I know,” Derek says, his voice rising, “is that about a week ago I started feeling like I wanted to slap the _shit_ out of someone, and a few days ago I realized that the person I wanted to slap was _me_.”

“That should tell you everything you need to know, then,” Stiles sneers.

Derek still looks mostly tired, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that may be a burgeoning scowl.

“What did I do?” Stiles demands, and the words come out accusing, mean. Good. There was a solid chance of them coming out like hurt, desperate things. It’s better this way.

That seems to throw Derek off-- the sleepiness falls away a little, and he sits a little straighter. “What did you do,” he repeats, voice flat. 

“Yeah, _what did I do_ ,” Stiles snaps back, fury coming on full-force in the face of Derek feigning like he _doesn’t know_. “You can’t tell me it just took you and your team two freaking months to draft up some contracts, Derek, so just own the hell up to it and tell me what I _did_.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Derek says, his voice getting a vicious edge to it. “The contracts? You mean the NDAs?”

“No, the _other_ contracts your people are having me and my friends sign.” Wait-- “ _Are_ there other contracts?”

Derek says, “ _No_ ,” with an angry, forceful relish. Stiles wishes he could believe him.

“Not now or not ever?” he demands, voice taking a turn towards mocking. “I only ask because these came out of the fucking blue, right, and I’d rather know now if that’s what my life is going to be-- me pissing you off somehow and then getting a phone call from a near stranger _minutes_ later telling me to sign some papers.”

“Pissing _me_ off,” Derek repeats. “You think you pissed _me_ off first.”

Stiles snatches the topmost sheet from the NDA stack to his left and brandishes it in front of his webcam, too incredulous-- too furious-- for words.

Derek’s expression is sour. “What the hell would you have done that would have warranted me suddenly needing an NDA?” he asks, his voice confused, maybe a touch wary.

Stiles wants to pull his fucking _hair_ out. “Exactly!” he shouts, shaking the legal-length paper again and again, making it rattle, no doubt crinkling it beyond repair. “Exactly!”

“Stiles, Lydia didn’t send you those to _punish_ you.”

Stiles shoots him a dirty look, disbelieving. “Really,” he bites out.

“ _Really._ ”

“Then why the hell did she send them at all?” 

"Because," Derek all but rumbles his voice is so low-- anger, Stiles recognizes. Derek’s angry at _him_. It's almost laughable if it weren't so fucking stupid. But whatever it was Derek was going to say, he snaps his mouth shut and looks away, glowering in the direction of something out of the line of sight of the webcam on his end. "Those didn't come out of the blue," he settles on eventually. "Lydia has wanted to send you those since the moment you left town."

"Then why--" Stiles starts, then stops suddenly. He closes his jaw with a snap. "Because you didn't let her."

The look Derek gives Stiles is the bitchiest duh look Stiles has received in his entire life. The part of him that isn't still feeling hurt delights at it, wants to make him look like that always. It's so attractive it's borderline criminal.

He has to shake his head to get the thought out of his head-- he's still angry. All this means is that Derek kept the fact that Lydia wanted contracts involved from Stiles for months. Him fighting Lydia on it may say something about the kind of person Derek is-- but the central problem Stiles has is still the same.

"You should have told me," he tells Derek.

Derek exhales, long and slow, and jerks his head to the side. A muscle in his jaw works, the movement strong and obvious enough that Stiles can see it even through the crappy camera feed. 

"You should have," he repeats, firm.

"Yeah," Derek agrees after a beat. 

It takes Stiles a few seconds to realize that that's all Derek's going to say.

"That's it?" he asks, incredulous. "That's all you have to say to me?"

Derek turns his head back, not exactly glaring but not not glaring. "What do you want me to say?" he asks crossing his arms and leaning back-- classic I-don't-want-to-talk-anymore body language.

He clearly doesn't know Stiles very well yet if he thinks broadcasting those vibes are going to get him to back down; all the change of posture does is light up something equal parts irritable and bossy inside of Stiles-- a lethal and super annoying combination.

"No, stop, stop it," Stiles says, shaking his head, making cutting gestures with his hands in the air. "If you're going to be a little bitch baby about this I'm going to block your number and your Skype account and I'm outtie. No more bond here, no siree."

Derek straightens, but it's subtle-- the tension in his biceps sloughing off, his shoulders dropping a little, his face going from annoyed to disbelieving in small increments from his eyebrows twitching into a more concerned line and his mouth opening, no words coming out.

It would seem that he has Derek's undivided attention, which is a vast improvement to the brooding-at-other-things thing he had going on a second ago.

Stiles doesn't gloat, but he doesn't not gloat. 

"Ready to talk about this like adults?" Stiles asks him.

"Is accusing me of being a little bitch baby how adults talk?" Derek shoots back, eyes narrowed.

"I'm not here to build a bond with a misanthropic teen with pretty eyes," Stiles argues. "So stop acting like one."

A corner of Derek's mouth lifts in a smug little smirk like he's going to-- "I don't know if you've heard, Stiles," he leans into the camera a little, and damn if the predatory thing his cheekbones have going on doesn't do it for Stiles, "but that's kind of my job."

Stiles gapes at him.

Derek clarifies, "Acting."

"I got it, thanks," Stiles bites out, trying his best to look a helluvalot less impressed than he feels. "Were you this much of an ass back in LA?"

Derek shrugs. 

There's a tense moment that drags out between them, then, like they're trying to size each other up through their computer screens. It's Stiles who breaks first, ducking his head and coughing, a smile tugging at his lips.

"God dammit," he huffs. "You're not supposed to be making me laugh."

When he looks at Derek again, Derek looks way too smug.

Stiles says, "I'm still mad at you," and points at his screen accusingly. "You lied to me."

Derek rolls his eyes at that. "I didn't lie."

"Lying by omission!" Stiles all but yells. "Still a lie!"

"I didn't--"

"Li-aaaaaaaar," Stiles interrupts, raising his voice over Derek's just to be obnoxious.

Derek closes his mouth with a click of his teeth and glares at the computer. Derek's glare is something Stiles is quickly becoming accustomed to. It... kind of does it for him, if he's being honest.

"Are you done?" Derek asks him.

"Being mad at you?" Stiles asks, cocking his head a little. "Nope," he pops the 'p' sound. "Interrupting you when you try to explain yourself?" he squints his eyes, thinking. "Maybe. Jury's still out."

Derek sighs a great, heaving breath, like he has to empty himself of all the air in his lungs to make room for more patience. "I'm sorry about the contracts," he says, though it only sounds half-genuine. Stiles will take it. He'd have taken quarter-genuine, maybe eighth-genuine if Derek had come to him in person. He's not a picky guy. "I should have told you."

"Was that so hard?" Stiles asks. 

The look Derek shoots him spells out excruciatingly. Stiles smirks back at him.

"Lydia's just trying to... protect us." 

"Us?" Stiles makes a gesture with his finger between himself and the computer, indicating Derek.

"Not-- well, yes, us. But also my family, here. In LA. And our friends."

"And herself," Stiles surmises. 

Derek makes a face like he's going to argue, but then he must think better of it because he closes his mouth and lifts a shoulder, conceding the point. "But everyone else, too. I should have told you, because not telling you wasn't fair to you. But I shouldn't have given her so much pushback every time she brought it up before, either. That was unfair to... everyone else."

Stiles considers this for a moment. "I can accept that," he admits. "My dad actually asked when we got back if I had signed any papers without a lawyer, and that was when I realized that-- it was kind of weird that we didn't have to."

"It's your Rite to not have to sign any papers on the first meeting," Derek says, repeating it like he's heard it a few dozen times before. "Even if Lydia had brought them to you in the theater, you could have refused to sign them and demanded to meet me, and it would have been illegal for her to refuse you. Interfering with Rite."

Right, Stiles had forgotten. "See, but if she had tried that she would have discovered really, really quickly how little I know about Rite." 

And, if he's being honest, how eager to meet Derek he had been. He probably would have signed anything put in front of him without so much as a second glance-- confessed to any number of crimes, agreed to pay Derek half his paycheck every month, whatever. 

Derek makes a short, amused noise. "Don't tell her that-- she'll start taking advantage of you to teach you lessons."

Oh, god. "Noted."

A small, awkward silence stretches between them then, and Stiles can tell that Derek expects him to break it, but it's-- what does he say? 

"So, about my birthday," is what comes out. Shit, shit, shitty shitting shit. That's the last thing he wanted to talk about. Things were going so well, and now he's gonna end up getting turned down twice over the same issue, and he's going to be a pissy little-- "Wait. Scratch that. Nevermind. Forget I mentioned it."

Derek inhales slowly now, looking like he's about to break bad news to Stiles, and Stiles braces him for the blow.

"Lydia's worried about the press," he says. "If someone recognizes me and calls in a tip or if they get a photo that connects the two of us in any way, it would be impossible for us to get out in front of that."

"I understand," Stiles says, wanting this conversation to have stopped before it ever began. It shouldn't be humiliating, but it is. He's never liked being told no. 

"She said she's more comfortable with you coming here because she could-- make arrangements for that. Control it."

That's-- something Stiles hadn't considered. "Oh," he says.

"But I know you have something planned."

Stiles laughs, a little rueful. "Right. Scott's planning-- actually, our parents are going out of town, and they all but shoved their houses into our faces telling us to throw a party in one of them."

Derek looks baffled at that. "What?" 

"It's been a dream of mine since I was in high school," Stiles admits. "But you try throwing a rager in your dad's house when your dad is the freaking sheriff. Even if he left town without putting all the neighbors on strict instruction to call him if more than one car parked in our driveway, no one would feel comfortable showing up at my place. So."

"And somehow giving a twenty-five year old permission is... better?"

Stiles makes a fuck-if-I-know face. "I've been-- pretty stressed recently. I think this was their way of being considerate. Besides, if I mess anything up, I have a job and they'll expect me to pay for it in full now."

"Well, there's that," Derek agrees. "A house party though, that's..."

"Definitely off the table for you coming, I know," Stiles sighs. "Well, it was a good false hope while it lasted, anyway."

Derek grimaces. "Sorry. I wish--"

Stiles waves him off. "Don't worry about it. Next year, right?" It stings more than he lets on, but it feels better knowing that Derek would if he could. There's still something resentful inside of Stiles that wants to demand why he got landed with a soulmate who has such a controlled life but--

He likes the way Derek glares at him and his snarky little jokes.

He's built entire fantasy futures in his mind with people who have glared and snarked at him; now he just has to make this one a reality. 

His clock reads quarter-til one. Holy shit. 

"Dude, you should probably-- sleep?"

Derek's eyes flicker down, and he curses softly. "I-- yeah. I should go." He looks back at Stiles, his expression torn.

"We can do this again, sometime?" Stiles asks, but he says it like it's a comfort. "And I'll probably start returning your texts again now that I'm... marginally less pissed at you."

"Thanks," Derek says dryly. "Have a good night, Stiles.”

Stiles’s name in Derek’s mouth is going to give Stiles a complex, Jesus. “Good night, Derek. Talk to you later.”

He shouldn’t be tired-- now that his new sleep schedule has him staying up until eight or nine in the morning most days, there’s no reason he should be getting tired before 6 AM. But he’s inexplicably exhausted and relieved, a warm ball of potential and hope welling up somewhere in the middle of his chest. It feels natural to close his laptop and cross the room, throw himself onto his bed, and wrap himself in his blankets, gathering the warmth in at his core and keeping it safe from harm.

He falls asleep like that, in a nest of blankets, his face relaxed, smooth, free of worry.

And in his dreams, for the first time in months, he finds Derek.

*

This isn’t the blank-white space of Stiles’s early dreams. The room is nearly fully-formed before his eyes, but he doesn’t recognize an inch of it. There’s no door in the room when he looks-- just an opening to a staircase (spiral, if Stiles had to guess). He’s stretched across a slate gray comforter-- his senses aren’t real here, so he can’t tell if it’s comfortable or scratchy. It certainly looks sleek. 

It’s like the dream he had the night he came back from LA, where he and Derek had been in Stiles’s apartment. The last dream Stiles had of Derek.

Something brushes his shoulder ( _I’m shirtless_ , he realizes), and where normal Stiles would have jerked and flailed, the Stiles he is in this dreamspace turns calmly into the touch and looks up to meet Derek’s eyes, charmed a little at the gob smacked expression on Derek’s face.

“Hey, handsome,” he teases.

“You’re here,” dream Derek breathes.

“Guess I am.” He looks at Derek some more. He’s the clearest, most defined thing in this place-- the rest of the room is thrown into perspective by his presence, like seeing a person standing in front of an obviously green-screened background. He’s also _not_ shirtless. “Is that a problem?”

Derek’s hand moves from Stiles’s shoulder to the back of his neck; for all that Stiles can’t really _feel_ it, it still sends a shiver down his spine. 

“No,” Derek says. 

And fuck if Stiles hasn’t _missed_ this-- the intimacy that hangs in the air when he can find Derek in his subconscious and follow him into a lucid dream. Here, he doesn’t have to think about the argument they had. Dream Derek never lied to Stiles or withheld information from him. Dream Derek’s just a beautiful, tender creation of Stiles’s mind-- an ideal, almost, if you don’t prefer real Derek’s glower and wry smirk and stupid sense of humor.

It goes without saying, maybe, that Stiles does.

As if picking up on Stiles’s thoughts, dream Derek frowns at him and says, “What?”

“Just thinking,” Stiles tells him, picking Derek’s hand off the back of his neck and turning into his palm to lay a kiss into it. “I’ve missed this.”

Not I missed _you_ , he notes. This Derek isn’t the Derek he’s spent months missing. But the connection Stiles feels in these moments-- the certainty of this thing that is StilesandDerek? _That_ he’s missed.

Dream Derek’s face goes soft. “Me too.” His thumb brushes against Stiles’s cheek.

He’s beautiful, and his touch sends something like electricity through Stiles even now. It’s too easy for Stiles to take advantage of the hold he has on Derek’s wrist and yank him in closer, dragging him across the bed and into Stiles’s space. It’s even easier for him to duck his head and give Derek a slow, searching kiss.

Derek goes tense all over for a moment before melting a little in Stiles’s lap. He’s folded in half, like this, his legs under him and his shoulders down, his head tilted back for Stiles’s mouth to get at his. It’s got to be uncomfortable, but the way Derek uncoils his body, gets his hands and knees under himself, and surges up into Stiles’s mouth is artful-- the stuff of dreams, Stiles thinks a little gleefully.

He lets Derek push him down and climb on top of him, then, Derek’s mouth hot and insistent on Stiles’s. There’s no real sensation here, but when Derek pulls away to draw in a breath, his lips are red and wet and his jaw is hanging loose. His breaths are shaky, and Stiles imagines the ghost of them against his face, tries to recall what it was like to take the breath from Derek’s lungs straight into his, to taste Derek’s mouth. The memories are far away and refuse to come when he calls for them. It’s endlessly frustrating, how real and not-real this space can be.

All he can do is hook an arm around Derek’s neck and pull him back again, arch up into his touch when Derek deliberately jerks his head down and puts his mouth to Stiles’s neck. Does he feel it? Not really. But his dream body responds like _it_ does, like _it_ knows what it wants. He whines through grit teeth as Derek drags his lips down and back, making it so Stiles has to turn his face away for Derek to get at the skin he wants to kiss

“I--” Stiles gasps when Derek gets a hand under Stiles’s right knee and pulls it out a little, yanks it up onto his hip so Derek can settle further between his legs, press their chests and hips and dicks together through the clothes they’re still wearing. Derek makes a winded noise at the first brush of their crotches, and he chokes out something that sounds suspiciously like Stiles’s name.

Stiles gets his hands under Derek’s shirt then, running his fingers up Derek’s back so gently that it makes Derek arch and hiss, cursing under his breath.

“Ticklish?” Stiles teases, and dream Derek does it-- he glowers at him. Stiles drops his head back and says to the vague shape of the ceiling, “Oh, fuck.”

Then Derek’s rearing back, pulling his weight off Stiles and going onto his knees for a second so he tear his shirt off over his head, showing off the line of his body and the bunching and unbunching of every muscle in his chest in the process. 

“Those aren’t even real,” Stiles grouses. “Flag on the field-- is it really fair for my dreams to make you look like _this_?”

Derek’s face scrunches up into something unreadable, but he goes in for Stiles’s mouth again, and Stiles isn’t about to complain. He draws Derek in and grabs onto him with a hand on his bicep and a hand on his hip and tangles their legs together.

“Your dreams,” Derek huffs against Stiles’s mouth, like it’s funny. Then, without an ounce of humor, he says, “I really want your dick in my mouth.”

“Lucky for you,” Stiles says, though his voice sounds breathy and weak to his ears, “I really want my dick in your mouth, too, so.”

“Lucky for me,” Derek repeats, and the next few minutes get vague as Stiles finds himself stripped out of his pants and put on his knees for a few seconds as Derek arranges himself flat on his back, chin held high. 

The world becomes less vague when Stiles realizes what’s about to happen. He has his knees on either side of Derek’s head, his balls brushing Derek’s chin a little, and he’s about 99% sure he’s going to come at the mental picture he’s getting from this position alone.

Derek takes his hands off Stiles’s hips; his head is propped up on some pillows. His mouth is so, so red. “Like this,” he says, and he gets a hand on the base of Stiles’s dick and then puts his red, red mouth to the tip of Stiles’s dick.

It’s like being electrocuted. Stiles thoughtlessly stuck a fork in a working toaster once, so he knows. This is pleasure so acute and so overwhelming that it’s pain, and he feels the sparks of it not in his dream body, but in his mind. Derek’s mouth is soft and wet, his tongue strong and sure against the underside of Stiles’s dick, and he chokes a little when Stiles’s dream body gets away from him and _thrusts_.

“Sorry, fuck, sorry,” Stiles says to the glare Derek gives him. “It’s just-- holy fuck.”

Derek’s eyes flutter shut, and he moves the hand at the base of Stiles’s dick in time with the way his lips move up and down the length of him, his mouth a tight ring that’s lighting Stiles up from the inside out.

It’s all Stiles can do to brace his forearms against the wall the pillows are angled against and arch into the sensation. He doesn’t follow the movement into thrusting, but he gives himself up to Derek completely. Derek’s mouth on his dick, getting sloppier with spit every time he pulls his head back only to press back down and take Stiles again, is everything Stiles has ever wanted and more; the grip Derek has on his hip is tight enough that Stiles imagines he can feel it-- _really_ feel it-- the same way he can feel his orgasm edging closer and closer with every breath Derek draws in through his nose and every pleased, aroused noise he makes from the back of his throat.

Derek shifts and takes his hands off Stiles’s hip and dick, lets his head fall back for a second, and asks, “Can you fuck my mouth?”

“Can I fuck--” Stiles repeats, peering down at Derek from where he’s rested his head against his forearms. From this angle, if he focuses on Derek’s chin, it kind of looks like Derek’s mouth is upside down. “What the fuck sort of a question is that?”

Derek glares at him a little. “Show me, then.” 

Stiles can’t get a hand on his dick fast enough. Derek opens his mouth and lets him slide back in, careful about his teeth. “Holy shit,” Stiles says, keeping his hand curled around the base of his dick so he doesn’t thrust too far in, gag Derek, and effectively kill the mood. There’s something dirty about it, about the way Derek’s giving it up for him like this. Stiles fists his other hand in Derek’s hair and, slowly, feeds his dick to him again and again and again.

“Oh, shit,” he says, “shit, look at you take it.” It’s un _real_ seeing Derek like this, his eyes closed and his eyelashes dark smudges against his flushed cheeks, his hair fucked to hell and back by Stiles’s grip on it, the way he moans and pants for it when Stiles pulls himself out entirely and rubs the head of his dick against Derek’s mouth, his cheeks, teasing himself with the stubble on Derek’s face.

It takes him a while-- so wrapped up in the sight of Derek like this, hungrier for Stiles’s dick than Stiles dared dream-- to register the slapping sounds. But once he hears them, Stiles becomes aware of the movement of Derek’s shoulders under his shins and the arching of his body.

“You’re getting off on this,” he says, awed. “You want my dick in your mouth that bad?”

Derek makes a wounded noise and glares up at Stiles from under his dark lashes. His face is red, his mouth is red, the whites of his eyes are starting to go red now that Stiles has brought him so close to that brink he looks near tears.

“Alright, then,” Stiles says, like he’s doing Derek a favor by sliding himself back into Derek’s mouth and _fucking_ into it, his back bowing a little as he gives into the urge to thrust, in and out in and out, resisting only a little to keep himself from going _too_ deep and _too_ hard. But Derek just goes slack, opens his mouth wider, makes sweet, pretty noises as Stiles gives it to him. 

On one enthusiastic thrust, Derek chokes a little, but before Stiles can pull back and ease up a bit, Derek puts a hand to his ass and draws him in impossibly deeper. Tears collect on his eyelashes as he puts his nose to Stiles’s pubic hair, eases Stiles past his spasming muscles and into the impossibly tight clutch of his throat.

“ _Look at you_ ,” Stiles breathes. “Holy shit.” He rocks a little into Derek’s mouth, wanting to chase that electric feeling deeper still. “You’re so fucking pretty like this, doing your best to take all of it.” He’s got both of his hands knotted in Derek’s hair, now, his only anchor to this world.

Derek slides his hand from Stiles’s ass back to his hip, and his second hand when it grabs at Stiles’s other hip is _wet_ , holy fucking god.

“Did you just come?” Stiles demands, and Derek nods a little where he’s still sucking at the head of Stiles’s dick, his eyes still closed. “Oh, fucking _christ_ , I’m gonna--”

Stiles has two, maybe three thrusts left in him and he takes them greedily, rotating his hips a little, nudging the head of his dick against the soft flesh of Derek’s inner cheek, and he slips himself out just in time to come across Derek’s mouth, his chin, his neck.

Derek makes a sound that’s suspiciously close to a whimper.

Stiles collapses to the side, panting, and waits for consciousness to claim him again.

***

Derek wakes up with a slow, inexorable groan. Too soon, he thinks, head sluggish. He’s wanted to dream about Stiles for months now, and being dragged away from the fantasy of him after just a night is-- cruel. 

There’s nothing he has to do today, for once, and all he really wants is to wrap himself up in a nest of blankets and dream the day away. For the first time in weeks, there’s no low-grade irritation making him snappish, making him feel too big for his skin. He’s not mad or bitter-- he’s just content.

He rolls onto his side and falls off the couch with a shouted curse.

“Yeah,” a voice from somewhere behind him says, “you passed out down here last night.”

“Right,” he groans, remembering. His laptop is still open on the coffee table, hibernating. “Are you off today?”

Braeden comes around the side of the couch and drops herself in the leather armchair next to it, kicks her feet up on the table, and turns on the TV. She’s got a handful of apple slices in her hand and one half-eaten and caught between her teeth. She makes a show of chewing and swallowing it while scanning Netflix.

“I only have a few hours, not the whole day,” she tells him after a few minutes of quiet between them. “Thought I’d come check on my favorite ex while I was in town.”

Part of Derek is tempted to just lay on the floor, tangled in his blankets, but he’s almost thirty and staying put will only lead to cricks and pains, so he pulls himself up, back onto the couch, and collapses onto it unceremoniously, rubbing a hand over his face to wipe the sleepiness away.

“So,” Braeden says, and she’s got that smile-- the smile that tells him everything he needs to know about how much _she_ knows.

“Don’t,” he practically pleads.

“You seemed to be having a pretty great dream there,” she continues, ignoring him. “Regular wet dream or premonition?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now,” he says, grumpy.

“‘Right now,’” she echoes, grinning.

“Coffee first.”

“I did my damnedest with that monster Lydia got you. It spit something out, but-- trust me-- it’s not drinkable.”

Sounds about right, Derek thinks. He gets to his feet slowly and pads into the kitchen. He feels disoriented still and there’s definitely an over-extended muscle somewhere in his lower back, but there’s joy somewhere mixed in, too.

“By the way,” Braeden calls from behind him, “I couldn’t get out of my Halloween shoot, so I’m not going to be able to make it to your mom’s place this Friday.”

“I’ll let her know.” 

“Sucks, though,” she huffs. “You better tell her I said I’m sorry I couldn’t make it _and_ happy birthday.”

He’s blinking sleepily at the small BUNN on his kitchen counter; it’s maybe a sixth the size of the monstrous espresso machine, but he loves it about a thousand times more. 

“Derek?” she asks, voice sharp.

“You’re sorry and happy birthday, got it,” Derek says, not looking back.

“Uh-huh. You think you’re cute.”

“I think I’m too tired and I don’t know why you want me to talk about my mom when you’re about to ask me about the sex dream I had last night.” Okay, so he’s maybe a little crankier than he originally thought.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when Braeden hooks her chin over his shoulder and grabs his shoulders from behind. The touch isn’t surprising at all-- they’ve always been tactile together-- but he had _thought_ she was on the other side of the room.

“You did that on purpose,” he complains.

“They had me take stalking-your-prey classes for the Katniss role,” she gloats, obviously pleased with herself. When he pulls out of her hold she’s grinning at him, raising an eyebrow at him in challenge.

The coffee machine yells at him.

“That was fast,” she says, cocking her head to the side to study the Bunn. “Does that thing use Keurigs or what?”

“It has a reserve water tank.” He fills up one of the plain white coffee mugs he keeps above the coffee machines and doesn’t bother to blow on it or anything-- scalding his tongue helps wake him up. 

He confiscates one of the apple slices Braeden had left on the coffee table when she came to sneak up on him, and the two of them fall onto the couch together, Braeden against one arm and Derek against the other, her feet pressing against his thighs a little.

“Alright, I’m listening,” she says.

“I’m not sure how I feel about my ex being this interested in my love life,” he feigns. 

She kicks him a little. 

He smiles at her. “It was just-- you know. One of the dreams.”

“Honey,” she says, the look on her face edging on condescension, “you had ‘just one of the dreams’ two nights a week when we were together, and you never sounded like you did when I let myself in this morning.”

“How long were you here?” he asks, eyes narrowed.

“Long enough.” She smirks. “So, was your Mariah-Carey-style dream lover making it good for you?”

He groans and tries to drown himself in his coffee mug.

“You don’t have to be shy,” she teases, “I already knew you liked butt stuff. This is a safe place.”

He’s smiling and laughing-- just a little, just enough to make the corners of his eyes feel tight with amusement-- and trying to hide it behind the lip of the mug, but Braeden’s always been great at reading him and disarming him, making the scary-bizarre parts of his life seem funny-bizarre instead.

He waits until she pops another apple slice into her mouth before saying, “No butt stuff. Just me choking on his dick.”

He’d hoped to surprise her, but she just keeps chewing thoughtfully, swallows like it’s something profound.

“I’m glad,” she hums. “That was always one of the trickier things to do with our dildo.”

Derek snorts, a sharp exhale through his nose. When he looks at Braeden again, she’s gathering the throw blanket he’d dragged onto the floor with him and pulling it over her legs, tucking it carefully around her feet. She catches him looking and smirks at him again.

“Any ideas?” she asks, gesturing at the TV.

He pulls her feet into his lap. “Anything you want.”

The smirk turns into a pleased, sweet smile.

He says, “If it’s really boring, I’ll just fall asleep again.”

She kicks him in the gut, makes him grunt, and finds the first _Diamond Interchange_ film just to spite him.

*

There are five girls standing on Derek’s mother’s porch that decided to go as _One Direction_ , down to the carefully- and subtly-applied facial hair. It’s impressive, really, the amount of consideration that obviously went into their group effort. Alone, they’re not that impressive, but together the resemblance is uncanny.

Derek tells them to take three pieces each which is one more than his mom likes. Of course, she’s one of those people who stocks up on hundreds of full-sized candy bars for the occasion. 

The Zayn-dressed girl squints at him like he’s familiar-looking, but otherwise none of the girls seem to recognize him at all. That’s hardly surprising-- his movies are largely before their time. Boyd doesn’t hand out candy for a reason, though, and is stuck inside helping Derek’s mom finish setting the table for their Halloween-Birthday dinner.

“Cora, sweetheart,” his mom is saying from somewhere inside the house while Derek offers the candy bucket to a Trick-or-Treating group comprised of two twin girls dressed as matching Elsas, a mother who went the extra mile and dressed up as Anna, and the toddler in her arms who is wearing a pair of reindeer antlers, “I want a picture of all of you in your costumes.”

“Mom,” Cora groans.

“It’s my _birthday_.” 

“Oh my god,” Cora huffs. “ _Fine_. Derek! Mom wants a picture.”

A boy dressed as a mailbox takes two candy bars when he thinks Derek’s not looking, and that’s the last of the kids Derek can see on the street. He drops the bowl of candy in the chair on the front porch, above the “TAKE ONE” sign, and closes the door behind him, leaving the porch light on.

“Erica your gauntlets-- don’t forget them.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hale.”

“I know I’ve told you a hundred times to call me Talia, honey. Mrs. Hale is my late husband’s batshit crazy mother.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Cora hisses.

Talia puts her hands up in a conceding gesture. About then is when she realizes that Derek has come back inside. “Oh, he’s here, everyone get in front of the fireplace.”

Erica gets there first because she’s still not entirely comfortable in Talia’s home, and she offers Derek a wan smile when he gets to her side. Her nerves haven’t stopped her from showing out-- if anything, she seems to have put extra care into her costume this year to make hers the most ornate out of everyone within their family group costume. She’s dressed as Fawkes in a leotard that has carefully applied red-and-yellow feathers on the body with longer curling feathers used as a tailpiece, a sharp headpiece and beak, her hair piled on top of her head and jewels and feathers mixed into it, catching the light and giving the illusion of delicate ember. 

Never one to be _too_ outdone, Boyd has on full Quidditch regalia (complete with the Hufflepuff colors mixed into the custom-made design and goggles on top of his head) while Cora has opted for a knee-length pleated skirt and sweater vest, leaving her collared shirt unbuttoned and without a tie around the neck. The cloak over her shoulders has emerald green accents and the scarf she’s draped over her shoulders is patterned with green and silver stripes. For his part, Derek didn’t put a ton of thought into his outfit-- he’s only wearing a pair of gray pants, a charcoal sweater over a white oxford, and a red-and-gold striped tie with a wand tucked into his back pocket.

Cora hauls her homemade _The Monster Book of Monsters_ copy into the photo with her, Boyd’s big arm thrown over her shoulder and showing the snitch pinched between his thumb and forefinger to the camera. Erica poses with her head thrown back, her elbows out to show the wing fabrications attached to her elbows and Derek stands with his shoulders pressed to hers like a _Charlie’s Angels_ knockoff, his wand in his hands like a gun.

“Cute!” Talia announces, and she holds her phone up long enough to probably take about fifty photos of them all with increasingly less impressed expressions. Even though she’s the person who decided their group theme this year-- and is herself in full Ravenclaw uniform including the cloak-- she makes no move to join them in the picture, happy to torture her kids from the other side of the lens.

“Mom,” Cora warns when it gets to be too tedious for her. 

“Alright, I’m done, I’m done. Everyone to the dining room-- chili’s ready!”

They all break for the dining room at the same time, but before Derek gets there he feels his phone in his pocket start to buzz. Ordinarily, he’d ignore it, but when he chances a look it says STILES.

He takes the call and lingers in the space between the dining room and the living room.

“Stiles?” he asks, half-convinced this may be a butt dial. They don’t-- they _haven’t_ gotten around to calling each other. Derek had thought Stiles hadn’t _wanted_ to.

“Sorry-- I know you said you’d be at your mom’s tonight,” Stiles blurts out. “But we’re doing our annual Halloween truth-or-dare Jenga, and I got dared to call you, so here I am, calling.”

It stings a little, hearing that Stiles hadn’t wanted to call, but Derek takes it in stride, refusing to take it personally. “It’s fine,” he says.

“Whoo, that’s good. Did I interrupt anything?”

“No. We just finished a really uncomfortably-long group photo session.” And Derek has been on a photo shoot set for nine hours straight before, so that’s saying something.

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier, then,” Stiles says with a laugh. “Are you in a costume? Please tell me you’re in a costume.”

“We’re doing the _Harry Potter_ thing this year.”

“Sweet. Can’t ever go wrong with _Harry Potter_. Wait-- what color tie are you wearing right now?”

“Red and gold,” Derek says immediately, proudly. 

“Good call,” Stiles harrumphs. “Any House with 'nerve' as one of its traits is going to be my favorite. I’m kind of mouthy, if you didn’t catch that.”

There’s a moment where they both sit in silence, letting the double entendre of _I’m kind of mouthy_ hang in the air between them until Stiles coughs and says maybe the only thing that could kill the mental image in his head--

“I think I get it from my dad being sheriff, you know?”

Derek _doesn’t_ choke, but it’s a near thing. “Yeah,” he grunts out, the image of Stiles’s mouth open and wet and-- well, that’s gone. He wills it away until he’s sure it is. To change the subject-- and to avoid knowing looks from his family and friends-- he asks, “What about you? Are you wearing a costume?”

“Sort of,” Stiles laughs. “We do closet costumes every year before Jenga. I think my costume is really clever, but it’s kind of-- it’s a visual joke. I’ll have to send you a picture.”

Oh, Jesus. “Alright…”

“Alright, it’s Malia’s turn, and I think I’m gonna make her eat dust from the ceiling fan if she gets dare, so I’m gonna go.”

“You’re going to land someone in the hospital,” Derek says, a little horrified.

“That’s just enjoying Halloween to the fullest, Derek.” Stiles says with feeling. Then he hangs up.

“Are you done?” Cora demands, looking like she ate something sour. She’s still not pleased with the idea of Stiles, but it’s their mother’s birthday, so Derek’s not going to make a scene about it.

“Yeah,” he says, and he takes a seat next to Boyd at the table.

*

He gets the picture of Stiles’s costume halfway through dinner. It comes in three parts: a cowboy hat on his head with some sort of draped sheet that looks like a tunic with a sheriff’s badge over his heart, a photo of a light saber in a holster attached to a pair of jeans, and cowboy boots.

Derek texts back: _Some call you the space cowboy?_

And Stiles replies: _HA! I was going for luke skywalker texas ranger, but that’s ALMOST as funny!_

*

The drive back to their homes is about two hours, and Cora and Erica climb into the backseat of Boyd’s Camaro and fall asleep almost immediately under Cora’s stretched out cloak, leaving Boyd and Derek up front with NPR playing quietly in the background-- storytelling, tonight, and someone’s telling a story about how they used to kidnap pets and return them to the owners for a reward.

Derek thinks it’s something Stiles would cackle at, maybe. He doesn’t completely have Stiles’s sense of humor pegged yet, but it seems like something devious enough for him to be impressed and amused by it.

“Everything okay?” Boyd asks him, and Derek turns to him, surprised. Boyd must read the question on his face because he elaborates, “I just haven’t checked in in a while. You seem happy-- I didn’t want to be in your business.”

Derek’s mouth lifts. He’s touched, honestly. Surprised, yeah, but touched.

“It’s good,” he says. “It’s-- it’s really good.”

He says it because he _wants_ it to be really good. It feels amazing, but he’s been so scared of jinxing it ever since he and Stiles roughly patched up the misunderstanding between them that he hasn’t _said_ so. But it feels good, and he wants to say it. Just once. Just to Boyd.

Boyd doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but he smiles and says, “That’s good, man. That’s-- I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Derek says, and he turns and looks out the window, listens to the story on the radio, quiet and content, and thinks about Stiles.

*

  

  

  

### NOVEMBER

The first few weeks of November, Derek and Stiles spend a lot of time on Skype. It’s hard to catch each other-- Stiles’s work schedule seems to be in diametrical opposition to Derek’s, though Derek has a lot more free time as _Diamond Interchange_ moves solidly into post-production. He’ll be auditioning for the latest role Marin passed to him towards the end of the month, but he’s not too worried about what direction that takes him in.

Lydia sends Haigh to Beacon Hills to collect signatures with Stiles and his friends, and Stiles keeps Derek on video chat the whole time to ask questions and to say mean, hilarious things about Haigh-- who is probably one of the worst people Derek’s met in all his time as a celebrity, and the man is just a _lawyer_. 

Stiles also hastily introduces him to Scott and Malia-- who Derek had been picturing as completely different people up until then. Something about the way Stiles had described Malia made her sound like a redhead, and he’d been expecting a blonde-haired frat boy stereotype when it came to Scott. But seeing the three of them together, lined up in front of the laptop’s webcam with Stiles closest to it, Scott to his side, and Malia on Scott’s other side…

The three of them make sense together.

Malia deliberately and outright torments Haigh the whole time; Stiles makes snide comments under his breath and shares significant glances with Derek when he can sneak them, and Scott does his best-- his very best-- to be civil about it, but Haigh makes a few snide comments of his own that seem to annoy even him.

When Haigh and the lawyer Stiles’s dad called in a favor from leave, Scott grunts, “What a dick.”

Stiles high fives him, his smile like the sun.

They text a little, too, though mostly that drops off the more time they spend on Skype. Derek isn’t a fan of texting, and he’s a little wary of how much they let slip through the cracks before, is largely unsure if their bond could handle another misunderstanding like the first one so soon. So he shies away from initiating conversation, though he never leaves Stiles’s texts unanswered.

Stiles doesn’t call him again, and Derek doesn’t know if that means the ball is in his court or if it just means that Stiles doesn’t want to talk on the phone unless he’s dared to-- he spends a lot of time laying awake and thinking about it, thinking about hearing Stiles’s voice right in his ear, like a secret, and being able to close his eyes and imagine what Stiles is doing on the other end.

He lays awake sometimes and thinks every night about saying what he’s really thinking, what he really wants to say to Stiles. The thing that’s been on his mind since Stiles left Los Angeles after the first week of August.

_I miss you,_ he thinks when Skype tells him that _stinklinkski_ has signed in.

_I miss you,_ he thinks when Stiles texts him complaining about catty soccer moms trying to con him into giving up the last two cans of cranberry sauce he snagged at the grocery store, four days before Thanksgiving.

_I miss you,_ he thinks when he falls asleep at night, wanting nothing more than to find Stiles in his dreams.

_I miss you,_ he thinks when he wakes up in the morning, whether or not he found Stiles there after all.

“Goodnight, Stiles,” he says at the end of every Skype conversation they have.

Then he signs off.

***

Lydia has roughly a million and one things to do the Monday before Thanksgiving. She’s redecorating her apartment, partially contributing to a conversation with Kira and Marin about a possible _Late Night_ appearance for Derek and what that would mean for her, e-mailing the Walkers to set up a good time for her to visit Meredith sometime before Christmas, and pulling all of her unwanted clothes out of her closet and nonperishables out of her cabinets so she can drop them off at the donation drive being run at the church up the street. 

She’s so busy that she doesn’t think twice when her business line rings; she accepts the call with a sharp, “Lydia Martin.” There’s a beat of silence. “Hello?”

“Is this a bad time?” the boy on the other end asks. “Sorry.”

“Who is this?” she demands a little.

“Um-- Scott?” Her brain stops short for a moment, caught completely off guard. “Sorry, this is weird, I know--”

“How did you get this number?” she asks, but the heated edge to her voice has gone out a little.

“You called Stiles a few times. About the NDAs we signed?”

She draws in a breath, trying to collect herself mentally. “If I’d known he’d be giving this number out, I would have included a clause about it.” She’s trying not to feel too resentful, but she has too much going on to have Scott McCall surprise her and talk about-- “What do you want?”

“Nothing about… us,” he says, and Lydia releases a sigh of relief. “Sorry, it’s just a weird time for me and I don’t think I’m ready--”

She doesn’t say ‘me either’ but she says, “We’re both busy. It’s not like we’re going to stop being bondmates if we need to take some time.”

“Yeah-- yeah. That’s, cool.” He seems to get distracted for a second, but he comes back and says, “Anyway, this is about Stiles. I need you to do me a favor.”

Ordinarily she’d be wary of that, maybe play it off icily. But Scott has something disarming about his seemingly-inherent good nature, so she simply says, “What can I do?”

Then Scott says, “I need you to come up with a way for Derek to come to Stiles’s birthday party,” and she regrets it immediately.

“No,” she all but snaps. “Absolutely not.”

“ _Please_ ,” he says. He’s not begging, but it’s a close thing. “There has to be a way.”

“I’m telling you: there’s not.”

“There’s always a way--”

“What do you want me to do?” she demands. “It’s not like I _want_ to keep them apart! I told Derek that Stiles could come here, that we could keep them both safe if he did. Derek is just coming out of a minor firestorm; his privacy has been invaded in almost every possible way in the last three months, and it’s put his friends and coworkers at risk. Derek’s happiness is a priority of mine, but his safety has to come first.”

Derek had understood, when she laid it out like that. Scott is a little less willing to see reason before romance.

“You want Stiles to choose between spending time with his friends and spending time with his soulmate on his birthday?” he asks.

“You can all--” she tries, but he interrupts her.

“In a city that he barely knows? He’d be miserable. He could barely handle LA when we were with him last time.”

She changes tactics. “If Derek is seen with him, the press would rip Stiles to shreds,” she says. “They’d pull every skeleton out of his closet, dredge up every inane detail about his past, take interviews from friends-of-friends-who-knew-friends about all of his habits and quirks, the people he’s dated, the things he said that are innocent in context but horrifying when twisted as a soundbite.”

“You don’t--”

“I _know_ ,” she insists. “I know this industry, Scott. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” he says immediately. She can’t tell if he’s lying just to keep arguing or if he means it. She’s a little terrified that he means it, even though this is maybe the third conversation they’ve ever had. “We have the chance to do something amazing for two people who care a lot about each other, and I know it might be really dangerous, and if it were anybody else I’d be nervous about asking but it’s _not_. It’s you, and I know that if you let Derek do this, you’ll make it be safe. You’ll find a way.”

That’s-- more faith than anyone has openly expressed in Lydia in her life, probably. Sure, there’s always been the implication of complete and total trust in her abilities and her knowledge; people aren’t _idiots_. But Scott-- who barely knows her, who has had her name in his head and has known nothing else about her for over half a decade-- is flying blind, going on little more than a _feeling_ that Lydia can pull this off.

It would take a minor miracle to find a way to get Derek into Beacon Hills, California without anyone noticing. They’d have to take her personal car, find a way to disguise him for the entirety of their stay, avoid anyone who isn’t Scott, Stiles, and possibly Malia like the plague, and have a story ready about who they are and why they’re there if anyone-- god forbid-- saw Derek with Stiles and started asking questions.

“This is the worst idea,” she says, her voice accusing. “There are a thousand ways this could go wrong, and it could ruin _everything_.”

“You’re going to find the one way that everything goes right,” Scott says, firm, believing. 

“How can you possibly know that?” she finally snaps, completely unmoored by everything Scott McCall has become.

“I just do,” Scott says. “I know you marathon _Project Runway_ every chance you get, smoke when you think no one is looking, and saved for six years to afford your first Marchesa gown.”

Lydia wants to cry, maybe. Just a little. She still has the dress-- it’s a few sizes too big for her, hanging in the back of the closet, untouched even when she was going through to pull out clothes to give away because she’ll never wear them again. Her eyes tear up at the mention of it, and she presses her palm to her forehead as if she can physically will them away.

Scott says, “And I know you prioritize Derek’s happiness more than you let on. If there’s a way you can make this work, I know you will.”

Then the line goes quiet, the two of them breathing-- Lydia a little wetly, now, Jesus-- and each waiting for the other to say something.

She breaks the silence first, taking her hand off her head and letting it fall, her whole body deflating a little as she decides to stop fighting it, to let everything Scott has said change her direction. It’s-- it’s not a feeling she’s used to, and she’s not totally sure that she likes it. 

“Fine,” she breathes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Scott seems to radiate _joy_ down the line somehow. She’s familiar with happiness, contentedness, smugness-- but pure, unmitigated joy is something she’s not sure she’s ever been faced with.

“No promises,” she hurries to say. “If I think it’s too risky, I’ll back out. I swear I will.”

“I trust you,” Scott says. “Thank you, Lydia.”

“You’re welcome,” she mutters. Before he can get any further inside of her head, she disconnects the call and stumbles over to the chaise lounge in front of her window, dropping onto it, exhausted.

But she now has a million and _ten_ things to do, so she picks up her phone again, finds a number buried in her fifteen-hundred contacts, and hits the call button.

“Hello?” Erica asks on the other end.

“I need you to do something for me,” Lydia says, the wheels in her head already turning, a plan already set in place.

Whatever she expected out of this day, it wasn’t Scott McCall. She’s not so sure, just yet, if that’s a good or bad thing, but this-- this she can do. She doesn’t need Scott’s trust, not really, no matter how it made her feel. She doesn’t need it because she knows-- intrinsically-- that this much she can do. She trusts herself to do it, and that’s all she needs.

***

**Oh my God**  
 **You didn't**

**Did I?**

**Don't fuck with me right now hale**  
 **I'm going to CRY**  
 **This is not a drill**

**There's a price for that, you know.**

**You got me an early release of BRAE's new album, signed by the woman herself with HUGS AND KISSES**  
 **Little freaking xs and os derek**  
 **EVEN HER XS AND OS ARE BADASS**  
 **NOT TO MENTION SHE HASN'T RELEASED AN ALBUM IN FOUR YEARS**  
 **I've PINED**  
 **There is no price I WON'T pay to thank you for this**

**She wants to take you out and interrogate you the next time you're in town**

**OH MY GOD**  
 **OH MY GOD???**  
 **OH MY GOD**  
 **DEREKE**

**Happy birthday, Stiles.**

**I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING SHUT UP**

***

For Thanksgiving, Talia takes them out to a hole-in-the-wall authentic Chinese restaurant-- which is exactly how Derek's family has celebrated Thanksgiving for the last fourteen years. His mom can't cook, and even if she could she wouldn't because Thanksgiving dinner had always been Derek's dad's job, with Laura at his side as his favorite helper. 

Nearly fifteen years after David Brunski sabotaged the brakes in Derek’s dad's sports car, the remaining Hales still can't face down a turkey. It was too much a reminder of what they had lost, too obvious a hole in their life.

So they gather around a table at Best Wok -- Talia, Derek, Cora, Erica, and Boyd-- and pick at their plates and talk about anything other than what day it is. 

"Are you working on your birthday this year, honey?" Derek's mom asks him.

"I think I'm free," he says, trying to balance a piece of broccoli between his chopsticks. "Marin doesn't have anything for me until the new year, and all of my promotional work for DI doesn't start until March."

She hums around a mouthful of lo mein. When she swallows, she turns to the other three. "How about you?"

"I have a few things up until the twenty-second," Erica volunteers.

Cora harrumphs. "Still no job, so."

Talia puts a hand to her forearm, wrapping her fingers around it in a comforting gesture. "It'll happen, baby. No one hires at the end of the year-- taxes and all that. Their budgets are about run dry, I'm sure, and they want to give everyone holiday bonuses. The market really opens up in January."

"Thanks, Mom," Cora intones.

"Well I'm free as a bird, Tallie," Boyd says, and he drapes an arm over the back of Cora's chair, his thumb brushing her bare shoulder in a gentle, reassuring gesture. She melts into it.

"Well, if you ask me, that sounds like a great time for a vacation," Talia says. "How does everyone feel about Maui?"

Erica lights up. "Maui?"

Talia hums. “I've been dying to go for years." 

Cora and Derek share a significant, frozen look at that. Their parents' had been planning a trip to Hawaii for a while when the accident happened-- for their upcoming anniversary. All year long, they'd been saving every way they could to afford it, back when affording things was an issue.

"Mom, we don't--" Cora tries.

"I want to," Talia interrupts her. "I think we should go-- in celebration of Derek's birthday. Honey," here she rounds on Derek, "you could bring your Stiles-- what do you think?"

Derek takes a breath. She's obviously asking him for his opinion on more than just bringing Stiles along, and that's the trick. He knows the answer to bringing Stiles-- that's a no, for obvious reasons. He and Stiles are just getting their legs under them with their bond, and whisking Stiles away, off the continent, and subjecting him to who-knows-how-long of a vacation with Derek's family is a fast way to make him feel suffocated.

But Maui could be nice.

"Stiles and I are taking things slowly," he says after a while. "But I like Hawaii. I think it'd be nice."

"Birthday boy decides!" Talia crows, clapping her hands together. "I'll start looking into hotels tomorrow after Cora and I get back from the sales."

"I'm prepared to kill a man for a DESTINY bundle," Cora explains, her expression drawn and serious over her club soda.

Boyd kisses her temple. "That's my girl."

"I think I have some hair trimming scissors in the car, if you need to stab someone," Erica jokes, her eyes bright.

Cora's smile goes sharp. "We'll see."

"You're going to get us kicked out of here," Derek grouses, catching the horrified expression of some of the staff behind the counter just a few feet away from them.

"Don't be a grump, honey," Talia says, pointing her chopsticks at him threateningly. "It's Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, honey," Boyd teases, stealing a piece of broccoli out of Derek's meal, "it's Thanksgiving."

Derek glowers at him. Boyd chews with his mouth closed, smiling.

*

In the blue-black dark of the night, Derek startles awake to the sound of rummaging in his bedroom. He isn't cat-sitting for Kira, and he changed his locks just a week ago so it probably isn't an overly-ambitious paparazzi about to go down for classic B&E charges. 

Instead it's Lydia, who is standing at the foot of his bed with her hair piled on top of her head, in an uptown body suit that's charcoal on the front and oyster-pearlescent on the back. Derek knows this outfit well-- it's her "I have to drive for several hours, but damn if I'm not going to look good while doing it." 

The effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that her hair is stacked on top of her head in curlers the size of toilet paper tubes. 

"Why," he says-- too tired to even dredge up any inflection he'd need to ask a real question.

"We're going on a trip. Erica's downstairs in the car, I've already packed your bags, it's time to get up."

Derek glares at her as best he can, his vision still blurry with sleep. "It's Saturday," he says.

She rolls her eyes. "And?"

"I have to be back by five tonight because I'm gonna Skype Stiles." Is he slurring his speech a little? Probably. His cheeks feel like they were stuffed full of cotton at some point during the night, and his breath tastes like death.

Her lips quirk a little at him, like she finds him endearing and funny all at once. "I promise you'll be able to talk to Stiles tonight," she swears to him.

With a groan, he drags himself out of bed. There's still teriyaki in his system-- he's sure of it-- and he feels like he could happily hibernate the rest of the week away. Instead, he stumbles blindly into the bathroom, hissing when he throws on the lights and what little vision he has goes spotty.

When he reaches for his razor, Lydia makes an aborted, disapproving noise. "Don't shave," she insists.

He throws her a look over his shoulder. "I haven't shaved in weeks," he explains slowly, gesturing with the razor at the No Shave November-esque monstrosity on his face. He hadn't even meant to participate, really. He just didn't have anything worth shaving for.

"Don't shave," she insists. "Brush your teeth, splash some water on your face, and come down to the car."

He's still wearing the Diamond Interchange-patterned pajamas that Kira got him for Christmas last year as a gag gift and... nothing else. 

He gestures at his chest with his razor in one hand and his toothbrush in the other, incredulous.

"Well, put on a shirt, obviously," she harrumphs. "I'm going down to the car. If you're down in the next five minutes I'll let you pick the music on the way."

"Deal," he says immediately. Lydia's never been a fan of Braeden's music, but Derek has a long car ride in front of him and the new BRAE album to change her mind.

"Five minutes," she repeats, and she disappears out of his room, down the spiral staircase, and less than a minute later he hears the front door roll open and then-- with a bang-- roll closed again.

He brushes his teeth in record time, grabs a white v-neck off the top of the pile of newly-cleaned clothes he'd dumped on his bed the night before, thinking he'd have to hang them up and fold them before going to bed. He'd slept half under them, in the end, warm and unbothered by their strange weight. 

He makes it down to the car in four minutes and eighteen seconds; Lydia looks disappointed, but when he hooks up his phone to the AUX jack, he catches the sly, pleased look that crosses her face. 

She starts the engine of her classic Beetle as the first rays of the sun begin to creep over the horizon-- pinks and oranges going up in streaks, warming even the darkest corners of the sky.

***

"Scott," Stiles breathes, shocked and more than a little concerned, "how many people did you invite?"

"Not this many," Scott insists down the line. "Are you here? Where are you? I think I can get these people to crowd surf me in your direction."

"I just turned on the street, I'm not inside yet." He's not even sure he will be able to get inside when he pulls into his driveway-- do this many people even live in Beacon Hills? His house is set off the road a little bit; he and his dad have a longer driveway than a lot of families in the suburbs of Beacon County, so there's a lot of room for cars to park on the pavement and off to either side of it. 

"A lot of people RSVPed on Facebook, but I didn't think--"

"You made a Facebook event," Stiles intones. "Of course you did. Scott, do you realize that you have more Facebook friends than any ten people I know combined?"

Stiles had traded shifts for today from the fourth shift to the third, and on his way home he'd swung by the store to pick up some necessities: chips, beer, a pack of cards for King's Cup, the usual. Now, as he inches closer to his home, he's worried about finding parking to his own freaking birthday party.

"Please tell me you locked my dad's room," Stiles says weakly. That's where he keeps his guns.

"And left the window open so you can break in later to unlock it, yeah." Scott sounds distracted, and he's saying 'bathroom down the hall, to the left, two minute limit, pee fast!'

"Scott," Stiles says, getting a look for the first time at the crowd of people standing outside his house, Solo cups in their hands.

"I know, dude," Scott says, warm, thrilled-- he's shouting over the music that Stiles can hear pouring out of the front door as he takes Roscoe to the curb and parks him. "We did it."

"You did it!" Stiles corrects. "You fucking did it, Scottie!"

"Best birthday ever?" and there Scott is-- coming out of Stiles's front door, cutting through a crowd of people talking and dancing, two Solo cups in his hands.

Stiles hops out of the Jeep, says, "It's sure as hell gonna be," and jogs to meet him in the throes of it all.

***

"I'm going to kill him," Lydia says as soon as Erica pulls the car up to the house-- Stiles's house, Derek thinks, his stomach swooshing again. "This-- how are we supposed to trick all of these people?"

"Relax, Lydia," Erica chides. "He's going to be hiding in plain sight-- as 'plain sight' as a hundred drunk people have, anyway. Are you criticizing my makeup job?"

After too many careful hours of grooming and difficult wardrobe decisions, Erica and Lydia eventually settled on a hipster-bro look for Derek. Between the cutoff jean shorts that end a few inches above his knees, the kaleidoscope-patterned men's tank top, and the green-and-white letterman jacket he's wearing, Derek feels a little like a Capital Cities knock-off. His face is almost completely obscured by the neon RayBans sunglasses and his shabby beard (most of which now is actually fake, though the application of the fake hair was careful enough to make it look like he's truly been living in the mountains for half a year). The duck-billed cap on his head is pure white to match the ADIDAS on his feet.

"At least I won't be the biggest tool here," he comments, noticing a group of guys running to their cars in togas.

"I'm going to kill Scott McCall," Lydia hisses.

"Can we go inside?" Erica asks. "I have to see what's going on inside if this is just the front yard."

Derek looks at Lydia, his eyebrows high on his face, and Lydia frowns at him, her expression dark, until she caves. "Fine, but you--" she points at him here "-- are not to leave my sight."

Lydia's posing as his equally-douchey girlfriend, complete with a completely offensive Urban-Outfitters branded Native American headdress and a red line painted across her eyes from temple to temple, a long-sleeved leotard with peace signs patterned all over it with a pair of high waisted cut-off jean shorts slipped over it. 

"I want to slap myself," she admits when she catches a look at herself in the side mirror. 

Derek helps her out of the car; she's wearing six-inch heels on top of everything else. "If I were this guy," he says, gesturing at his ensemble, "you'd probably be the girl of my dreams right now."

"Luckily for both me and Stiles..." she starts to say, but the words fade as she begins their march through the front yard.

"Where did you get the headdress from, anyway?" Derek asks Erica as they sidestep the toga-wearing group to get into the house.

"Did you know they wanted to do a sequel to the Johnny Depp remake of the Lone Ranger?" she asks airily. "No? Then let's not talk about it."

***

"JUST THE MAN I WANTED TO SEE!" Caitlin screams in his ear when Stiles bumps into her on his way to the bathroom. He doesn't have to pee, but the thought of having a foot on either side of him just to breathe and be alone for a second is too good to pass up.

"Hey! What's up?" he shouts back, not quite as loud. The current playlist queued up is comprised entirely of SAIL remixes. It's more enjoyable than he'd have originally thought.

"Happy birthday," she hollers, dropping a plastic crown on his head that says BIRTHDAY KING on it. "I got you a promotion!"

"What?" he asks, startled, falling back a little. She catches him by the elbow, and her grin is beatific. 

"I talked to the Knowledge and Innovation Department!" Someone blasts an air horn next to them for about three seconds before two brodudes in togas confiscate it and start dressing him down for being a douche. Caitlin continues to talk, "-- want to bring you in for an interview after the new year!"

"Holy shit!" he says, reading between the lines of what he missed, "that's-- Caitlin, that's amazing! Thank you!"

She kisses him on the cheek. "Anything for my favorite--" her voice gets lost; a new SAIL remix begins. She disappears into the crowd, and Stiles stands there, flabbergasted, a stupid grin on his face.

"Hey!" a guy in a toga says-- up close, Stiles can see that it's Mason, which means Liam must be somewhere around here. Ugh. "Birthday King!” He peers into the Solo cup Stiles has in his hand. “Why is your cup empty?"

"That's a damn good question!" Stiles shouts back, and he grins big and wide as Mason opens a fresh PBR and upends it into Stiles's Solo cup. "Happy fuckin' birthday to me!" 

"What?" Mason shouts back, face scrunched up, confused.

"Happy fuckin' birthday to me!"

"What?"

"Your best friend is the worst!" Stiles shouts in his face as the music gets just quiet enough for him to be heard by the closest ten people.

Mason steps back, looking both smug and annoyed. "I'm just going to let you be embarrassed about that, now."

"Thanks," Stiles mutters.

"Happy birthday."

"You guys look really dumb in those togas," Stiles says to his retreating back, but he only half means it.

***

"What's with the togas, anyway?" Erica is asking Lydia when Derek's ears eventually adjust to the overwhelming bass pounding through the house. 

"Scott was president of a frat in college," Lydia explains. "I'm willing to bet those are his frat brothers."

"Will Stiles be in a toga?" Erica asks, her eyes lighting up with something like unholy glee.

"Stiles and Scott didn't go to college together," Derek says. "Stiles went to community college here in town for his degree."

Erica takes a sip of the punch she nabbed from the kitchen and winces. "Holy shit, this is literally just colored vodka."

"Amazing," Lydia drawls.

"I'm in love," Erica says with feeling. "This is the best party I've been to in my entire life." She winks at a pair of toga-wearers that slip past.

Lydia looks murderous. "I'm going to--"

"Kill Scott McCall, we know," Erica teases, throwing a wink at Derek.

"What about me?" a voice shouts over the music, and Derek, Erica, and Lydia jump, surprised, to find Scott himself and a dude with a toga standing behind them. "Holy-- Lydia, is that you?"

"You," she growls. 

"What are you _wearing_?" Scott's laughing, but he's clearly trying not to. "You look-- please take that off."

Lydia rips the head dress off, seeming to savor the violent gesture of it. When she addresses Scott next, she's waving the thing in his face like it's threatening. "You," she snaps, "did not tell me this would be like this."

"You came!" Scott's saying, like he can't hear Lydia (which, Derek's almost completely certain, is definitely the case). "Stiles is go---- so happy---- see you. ----Derek?"

Derek nods when he hears his name, only really able to guess at most of what Scott is saying. It must be the right thing to do because Scott puts his hand out and Derek takes it. Scott's hand is almost as warm as his smile. 

Lydia kicks her shoes off and takes them in her hands. "You," she says, still shaking the head dress at Scott. This time he seems to hear her, turns his full attention her way. "We're going to go talk somewhere-- now."

"So much for not letting you out of her sight, huh?" Erica asks as quietly as she can, and Derek snorts.

"Sure, of course," Scott says, looking appropriately cowed in the face of Lydia wielding two six-inch stilettos in his direction. "Oh---- the way," he turns to the toga-wearing guy, "this is Liam. He's Malia's----"

Derek doesn't catch the next word, but he nods at the guy anyway. Scott and Lydia disappear around a corner, Scott leading the way and Lydia molting and leaving a trail of Hansel-and-Gretel-esque feathers in her wake.

Liam nods back at him. "Are you disguised?" he asks.

Derek nods, stiff.

"That makes sense," his grin twists into a smirk. "Stiles is gonna hate----"

Then he's gone, leaving Derek in a mild panic about what he might have meant.

"Wanna keep looking for loverboy?" Erica shouts in his ear, oblivious.

***

In the dining room, there's a group of people crowded around the table playing the fuck-passing game, their hands clapping in a rhythm synced up with the latest SAIL remix. Malia's sitting among them, perched on Danielle's lap with an arm around her shoulder, her head thrown back in a laugh that shakes her whole body.

When she sees Stiles, she extracts herself and bounds over to him, her hands slipping into her pockets, her grin huge and happy. She's not drunk or high yet, but he can see the mood of the party easing her into that place, lighting the fire for it inside her.

It's marginally quieter in here, so Stiles doesn't have to strain to hear her when she says, "Hey, have you seen Liam?"

"It's my birthday," he complains. "Why is he here on my birthday?"

"Because he bought two kegs in your honor and you're an ungrateful shit," she tells him. "When did you get here, anyway?"

"Maybe an hour ago?" He's not totally sure; time passes weird when he's being dragged between dancing bodies and having beers pushed into his hands and random bursts of HAPPY BIRTHDAY scream-sung at him. Who knew? "Oh, shit, guess what! The most unbelievable thing happened just now!"

"The Mets won a game?" she asks, mocking.

He doesn't rise to the bait for once, but he does shoot her a dirty look. "Caitlin got me a job!"

She stares at him, eyes wide, and then promptly starts to jump and yell, "Oh my god!" over and over. "Stiles, that's great! Happy fuckin' birthday to you, right?"

"That's what I said!" he says, and when she wraps him in a congratulatory hug, he closes his eyes and sinks into it. "I'm not going to be homeless!" he cheers when they pull away.

"Okay, we have to celebrate," she decides. "You-- stay here. I'm getting us drinks, and I'm gonna see if I can sniff out anything a little more fun while I'm at it, too."

"Ugh," he protests only half-heartedly, and when she goes, he shoves her a little to send her on her way. She looks back at him over her shoulder with a grin, then she disappears into the crowd.

***

Just past Stiles's room, there's a door with a handle lock and a deadbolt, locked on the other side so someone would have to have a key to get inside. It leads up to the attic, which is spacious enough for Scott to have a private conversation with Lydia comfortably-- if they can just get upstairs first. On their way, he gets hip checked by Malia, who winks at him and then raises her eyebrows impossibly high when she sees Lydia next to him.

Scott puts a finger to his lips and Malia smirks, disappearing into the party raging around them. The fact that nothing has been broken yet is a testament to how many things Scott and Stiles hid in the attic before this got started.

He leads Lydia upstairs, letting her go first so he can follow and be sure not to lose her in the crowd of people coming and going from the upstairs bathroom. 

"Where--" she starts to ask, but Scott pulls his key ring out of his pocket and starts flipping through keys until he finds the right one, and Lydia gets the picture before he even gets the door open. "The attic? Really?"

"It's quiet," he says with a shrug. 

That seems to be enough for her because as soon as he offers the revealed staircase to her, she marches straight up it, and Scott follows, closing the door behind them and locking it tight.

"You're mad at me," he decides once they're at the top of the stairs and Lydia has settled herself on a box marked GOODWILL that will probably never be donated because it's full of Stiles's mother's things. 

"You think?" she scoffs.

"What-- I didn't mean to upset you."

"How many people are here, Scott? How many people could possibly see Derek? You didn't tell me it would be like this."

"I didn't know it would be like this!" he argues. "I thought it'd be smaller, just a few of our friends. But this is better!"

"Better?" she snaps. "How could this possibly be better? You've just multiplied the chances of him getting caught in my eyes."

"As if anyone is looking for Derek Hale down there!" Scott says. "They're too busy dancing to the same song over and over and drinking! It's great!"

Lydia buries her face in her hands, and her hair sweeps over her shoulders, revealing her back where the leotard she's wearing dips low and bears a lot of skin.

"I'm worried," she confesses. "I know you're-- logically, that's right. But this is terrifying."

Scott takes a seat next to her on the giant box and puts his hand on her shoulder, where the leotard hasn't exposed her skin. "It's going to be okay," he says.

She deflates a little. "Erica's makeup is pretty good," she admits.

"It's great-- I would never approach that guy, ever," Scott agrees, smiling.

Lydia laughs, and it doesn't sound nearly as humorless as most of the other laughs he's heard from her. "He looks like such a tool."

"Well, he didn't walk in wearing that like it's a fashion statement," Scott says, kicking at the head dress Lydia's dropped on the floor. "Where did you get that? Urban Outfitters?"

"Apparently _the Lone Ranger_ was supposed to have a sequel?"

Before he can stop it, Scott feels his expression morph into something disapproving.

Lydia hums, a quiet, agreeing noise. "Yeah, that's pretty much how we all felt about it."

***

It occurs to Liam-- sometime around ten-- that the cops probably aren't going to bust this party because Stiles lives far enough off the street and away from other people for noise complaints to not really be a thing, and his dad probably told the entire force to not keep too close an eye on their street for the night.

Apparently the perks of being a sheriff's kid don't kick in until you're past the legal drinking age. Still, belated though they may be, they do make for a pretty sweet house party. Did Scott technically enlist his brothers into putting on a uniform and being glorified hall monitors, making sure no one gets too rowdy and out of control? Well, yeah, but not too many people have really reached that limit-- the dude with the air horn, the girl who got so drunk she tried to take a piss on the back doorstep, the pretty boys who showed up trying to find a place they could do a line had all been seen out, put in a cab, and threatened away, respectively. All in all, things had been pretty good.

Good enough, he thinks, for him to have warranted himself a drink.

He's not a bartender, but he feels pretty confident that a sangria-peach vodka-Country Time pink lemonade mix will be a hit, and he starts trying to put the pieces together when he feels a set of lean, strong arms wrap around his waist and a pair of lips buss a kiss on his neck.

"How drunk are you?" he asks, jug of sangria still in hand as he rounds on his fiancée.

"Not at all," Malia says, and she pats his cheek affectionately. "Tonight's just a really, really good night."

"You looking for 'shrooms?" he asks her. 

She gives him a duh look-- which, well, he deserves that. That's generally Malia's MO at any party they find themselves at. And the way Malia took on his coffee preference definitely applies to his newfound love of 'shrooms. 

"Let me know if you find any," he says, and she nods, her hair bouncing around her face. 

"Speaking of finding things," she says, voice going so low he almost loses her words completely to the music, "guess what I just found out?"

"Do I get a hint?" he asks.

"It's going to make you pretty happy."

It doesn't, of course. "Does it have to do with the fact that Stiles's soulmate is here?"

She frowns. "What? No. Derek’s here?" She waves her hands a little, like she’s brushing the idea aside. “Hold that thought though-- guess what I just found out!”

"No clue," he concedes.

"Stiles got a job!"

Oh, thank god. There was only so much more beer Liam could keep buying, only to watch it going into Stiles's stupid-sad mouth as he got rejection letter after rejection letter.

"We're going to celebrate!" Malia continues. "Is that yours?" She points at the Solo cup where Liam was making his sangria monstrosity.

"It's going to be _so_ bad, but it’s going to get me _so_ drunk," he says, grinning.

"Make three-- we're celebrating!"

So Liam presses a kiss to her cheek-- has to get on his toes to do it when she's in heels like she is tonight-- and does so.

***

"No sign of him," Erica says when they wander through the crowd in the backyard. Things are starting to quiet a little bit-- drunk groups of people are standing around outside debating video games and sex, religion and Doctor Who all in one space. 

"It's his party," Derek says, pointing out the obvious. "There's no way he's not here."

He knows that Stiles managed to get a shift swap for today; Stiles told him a week ago on Skype, was celebrating with a giant bowl of Captain Crunch that made his gums hurt for hours later, even until they managed to Skype again the next day.

"Hmm, well, I guess we can go through the house again?" 

Which probably wouldn't do them much good. It's an older house, with a tricky floor plan, and Derek's almost certain that Stiles is moving through it, as well, mixing and mingling with all of the people who came out to celebrate him.

"I think the best thing we can do is just stand in one place and wait," he says. "This obviously isn't working."

"Okay, well, if we're going to stay in one place, let's do it back inside where the real party is still going," Erica decides and starts to push him along in that direction, "these people are too sober and the lighting is just low enough that they might be able to make out your face under all that mess."

He lets her whisk him back inside, where they find a spot of wall against the stairs, settle against it, and wait.

***

Malia has two cups of sangria-peach vodka-lemonade in her hands as she maneuvers carefully through the house, avoiding the people who are still dancing to the SAIL remix album two hours later-- there was a time she liked this song, she thinks sadly. Maybe one day she'll be able to remember it without associating it with the total letdown that is no one in this house having freaking ‘shrooms.

She's on her way back to the dining room where she left Stiles a while ago-- too long, if she's being honest, oopsies-- when she sees him. Tall, bearded, and dressed like a total douche.

That's her ticket-- she's sure of it. Only one type of douche wears sunglasses, indoors, at ten o'clock at night. And that type of douche always has her favorite drugs. 

"Hey," she says, sidling up to him. Both he and the bombshell blonde beside him look startled.

"Hi," the guy says, awkward. "It's good to see you again."

So she's met this guy? Whoops. She totally doesn't remember that, like, at all. "Are you guys planning on having-- fun-- tonight?" she asks.

Normally the right people get what she means by that; these two just look uncomfortable and uncertain.

"We are having fun," the blonde says. 

"Malia," and there's Liam, finally caught up to her, putting a hand on her elbow. He notices the guy and the blonde. "Oh, hey, did you guys find Stiles?"

"He's in the dining room if you want to wish him a happy birthday," Malia tells them, gesturing with both hands-- and both drinks-- to the room down the hall where she left Stiles.

"There's a dining room?" the blonde asks, then nudges the guy with her elbow. "Go figure, the one place we didn't even know to look."

Weird. Whatever. They clearly don't have what Malia's itching to get, but she can lead them to Stiles, at least. "Follow the leader!" she announces, raising her arms above her head to keep the drinks out of the way as she pushes through the crowd to get to the dining room.

***

“I should probably get back down there and find Derek,” Lydia admits, and Scott nods, understanding. Downstairs the SAIL remix is screeching _la-la-la-la-la-ohhh_. 

He says, “If anyone gets weird, look for the guys in the togas. They’re cool.”

“Guys in togas being cool?” Lydia scoffs.

“No, really-- they don’t _know_ -know, but they know how to take someone out if they start acting like a douche.”

Her lips curl up a little. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The air between them is as quiet as any place in the house, both of them still perched on the overlarge cardboard box with Lydia picking at her cuticles and Scott toeing shapes into the layer of dust coating the attic’s wood floors. He doesn’t want to leave, which only takes him a little by surprise, but Lydia’s right. 

“We should probably get down there and make sure Stiles knows Derek’s here.”

“Is there a place they could be alone?” Lydia asks. “I know it would mean a lot to Derek.”

“I locked Stiles’s old room before closing the door. He can break into it with a credit card if he needs to, but I’m not sure how to get them there and surprise him at the same time.”

She nods, thoughtful, and he gets up and extends his hand out to her to help her up. She’s still got her stilettos hanging by their straps from two fingers, and she eyes Scott’s offered hand suspiciously, but eventually she slips her hand into his, her smile small enough he almost thinks he imagines it.

She reaches for the headdress. “Don’t worry about it,” he says immediately.

She snorts inelegantly, but when he urges her towards the attic door, she goes.

***

“Stiles?” Danielle asks, adjusting the strap of her toga thoughtfully. She’s sitting exactly where Malia left her in the dining room, dominating a round of King’s Cup, but Stiles is nowhere to be found. The blonde chick and the dude standing behind her are probably going to be pretty disappointed. Oops. “Nah, I haven’t seen him since Heather dragged him outside for a smoke.”

“What kind of smoke?” Malia asks. 

Danielle gives her a look. “The only shit that boy ever smokes. Jesus, girl, you’d think you weren’t ever boinkin’ his scrawny ass.”

“Gross,” Malia groans, more at the fact that Stiles is smoking weed than the ‘boinking.’ She turns to the pair standing behind her-- who mostly just look dejected, maybe a little amused. “Sorry, I think we lost him,” she admits. Then she extends the Solo cups in her hands to them. “Want a drink?”

The blonde waves her off. “No thanks, we’re good.” The guy next to her is looking around like Stiles is going to come out of the woodwork or something, a frown on his face. Up close and under better lighting, he looks more familiar, like someone she’s--

“Oh, shit, sorry!” a voice cuts in, giggling wildly. Fortunately, Malia’s not covered in Liam’s weird sangria concoction when she turns around and finds-- 

“Heather! Great, we were just looking for you.”

“You were?” Heather asks, pushing her hair out of her face. Danielle snorts.

“Well, sort of,” Malia corrects. “We’re looking for Stiles. I heard you had him.”

“Oh, I did. But then…” Heather waggles her fingers at them. “Munchies!” she shouts, like it’s some mystical spell she’s casting on them. Then she cracks up a little, drops her hand to her side with a slap. Her eyes are so, so red. “Yeah, no, haven’t seen him since we cashed the bowl. We got separated sometime around the _blame-it-on-my-ADD_ ,” she sings the last part. “Maybe he’s still outside? He said he had to take a leak but didn’t want to wait in line.”

Malia turns to the blonde again and raises her eyebrows. “There are some trees along the edge of the backyard? That’s the best I got.” 

“So _now_ he’s outside,” the blonde grouses, throwing a significant look at the guy by her side. “You wanna head that way?”

The guy hesitates for a beat, then says, “Sure.”

“Thanks for your help,” the blonde says, waving as she follows the guy out of the dining room, keeping a hand on his shoulder.

After they’re gone, Liam pulls Malia close with an arm around her waist, tips his head back and asks her, “Does Derek Hale always dress like that when he’s not working?”

Malia squints at him then squints back at the way the blonde and the guy went, no longer able to see their retreating shoulders anymore.

“Holy shit,” she hisses.

Liam catches both of the drinks when her stunned grip on them goes slack.

***

At some point the music was turned down some, but when Scott and Lydia get to the first floor again it seems like more people have managed to wedge themselves into the Stilinski house. Most of them are shoulder-to-shoulder or dick-to-ass shuffling through the hallways-- which are narrow and tall in that charming way older houses have-- and while there’s marginally more space in the actual rooms, it’s not enough to write home about. There’s a lot of sweaty bodies gyrating to SAIL. More than Scott ever saw in his frat days, even.

It’s no wonder then, that they don’t find Derek immediately. It doesn’t help that most of the people Scott knew to invite are dressed similarly to him-- the douchey hipster bro look, evidently, had been a good call to blend Derek into a crowd of twenty-somethings at a post-Thanksgiving birthday party.

“Maybe he’s outside?” Scott suggests, pointing over Lydia’s head towards the back door then back behind him towards the direction of the front porch.

Lydia narrows her eyes in that direction. Then she nods. “You check the front yard, I’ll check the back,” she delegates before ducking into the crowd, effectively parting the Red Sea to make it through.

Scott smiles after her for a beat, then turns to himself towards the front door only to run into--

***

“Stiles!” Scott shouts at him, grinning. He leans in to take a whiff. “Oof, you smell like a skunk. Did someone smoke you out?”

“Heather,” Stiles says distractedly, waving his hand a little. He’s gone up on his tip toes, his head moving as he tries for follow that flash of red hair through the crowd. “Was that _Lydia_?”

“Who?” Scott asks, brows furrowing.

Stiles gives him a look, unimpressed. “Lydia,” he shouts, his voice rising over the music.

“Her? No way,” Scott says in a way that definitely says _yes, yes it was_. “That was just a girl looking for the bathroom. I can see the resemblance though.”

Scott has it in him to be a very, very good liar, but Stiles knows what he _saw_. Doesn’t he?

“She looked like--”

“Dude, you’re high,” Scott says, interrupting him, putting his hands on Stiles’s shoulders. “And I saw you take like five shots earlier.”

“Six,” Stiles corrects automatically.

“Oh, well, _six_ ,” Scott teases, gently. “Before that, you had a few beers too. Maybe you need to sit down.”

Any doubt Stiles had about the girl goes up in smoke at that-- Scott would never fake concern, would never tell him he was hallucinating when he knows about the bad highs Stiles gets. He just wouldn’t.

“I’m going to go up to my room for a little bit,” Stiles decides. He’s cataloging his feelings and sensations now-- all ten fingers, all ten toes, both ears, a nose. He doesn’t feel like he’s having a bad high; he feels light as a feather and happy. He has never liked SAIL more than he does right now. But if he is seeing things...

“Okay, want me to go with you?” Scott asks, concern etched into every line of his face.

Stiles shakes his head. “I’ll-- text you? If I need anything?”

“Sounds good,” Scott says, clapping him on the back. “Love you, man.”

“You too,” Stiles says, slipping away to head upstairs.

***

Erica walks Derek along the tree line, and they do find a couple of people pissing and more than a few people sloppily making out, but there’s no sign of Stiles, and Derek’s starting to get frustrated. At least from back here he can’t hear SAIL anymore. 

“Man, I can’t believe this kid just up and AWOLed on his own party,” Erica huffs, kicking at a stack of fallen leaves. Then she snorts. “Get it?” she asks, flapping a hand towards the house. “AWOL?”

Derek stares at her blankly.

Erica sighs, drops her hand by her side. “If he’s anything like this party, your soulmate must be a pretty weird dude.”

Derek makes a noncommittal noise, not sure how to respond to that without insulting Stiles or giving away how fond he is of Stiles’s weirdness. He’s spared a conversation about it when his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket.

When he takes it out, the screen says STILES.

He shares a significant look with Erica, then picks up the call. 

“Hello?”

“Oh thank god,” Stiles breathes in a rush. Derek can hear SAIL coming through over his phone’s end. “Okay, so, this is weird, I know we don’t really do this, but I’m-- I think I saw something? And I’m maybe about to freak out a little bit?”

“What?” Derek asks, voice going sharp. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know any reason why Lydia would be in Beacon Hills? Sorry, I know it’s weird. I’m high right now, and I--”

Derek turns back towards the house, walking quickly. “Where are you?” 

“I broke into my old room to catch a break. This is pretty much the party of my dreams, complete with someone getting too fucked up and having a panic attack in a locked room.” Here he laughs a little, rueful. Then his voice goes soft. “I don’t know why I thought that chick was Lydia-- that was dumb. Sorry I called-- I know we don’t really do that yet.”

“You can call whenever you want,” Derek says, distracted as he pushes through the back door and into the house. Everything sounds different, suddenly. It takes a minute for him to realize that there’s-- finally-- no music playing in the house. Instead, all Derek hears are the various conversations happening all around him.

Down the line, Stiles sounds surprised. “Really?”

Derek kind of wants to hit him for being an idiot. Maybe he will, when they’re together. “You’re my soulmate,” he hisses. “Yeah, you can _call me on the phone._ ”

Stiles huffs. “Well, sorry I don’t know the protocol for bonding with a freakin’ celebrity, then!” He doesn’t sound mad-mad, but a little irate for sure. Definitely not panicked, though. Derek will take it.

He marches up the stairs, avoiding a flurry of people running back downstairs saying _maybe they’re going to put something else on now_. There are four doors upstairs: one with a line in front of it leading down the stairs that must be the second bathroom; one that’s extra-narrow that’s probably a linen or utility closet; one on the far end of the hall that Derek would put money on being the master bedroom, and the fourth-- just down the hall from the bathroom-- Derek has to guess is Stiles’s bedroom.

He knocks on it, three sharp, loud raps.

“ _No_ ,” Stiles shouts from inside. Derek hears him on the phone, too, like an echo. “Go hook up literally _anywhere_ else.” A pause. “Except the room at the end of the hallway.”

“Stiles,” he shouts back. 

There’s no sound for a long while before Derek hears, from his phone, “Uh, Derek…”

Derek sighs. “You’re not hallucinating Stiles-- open the damn door.”

“Oh my god, I’m going to throw up,” Stiles complains with feeling. “And you’re going to _deserve_ it for _crashing my birthday party_ and not _warning me_.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, hanging up the phone and yelling through the door.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” he shouts back, sounding weak, and he’s not shouting but he sounds close, like he’s right next to the door.

“Stiles.”

“Why me, God.”

“If you don’t let me in, how are you going to make fun of the outfit Lydia and Erica made me wear to blend in?”

Stiles draws a breath sharply enough that Derek can hear it through the door. “That’s just playing dirty.”

Derek grins sharply but doesn’t say anything. 

“Fine,” Stiles relents, and Derek hears the lock jingle as Stiles twist it open.

***

Stiles is careful to crack the door open just enough for Derek-- _Derek, holy shit--_ to slip inside, staying out of the way so he doesn’t have to actually _face_ him, oh, Jesus. But once Derek’s inside, Stiles closes the door with enough force to make the frame rattle, and he locks it up tight again.

It takes him a long, long time to gather the courage to look at Derek. It feels a little like a hallucination, if he’s being honest, and he doesn’t want to look up at him only to find out that he’s not real after all. But, carefully, he turns his body and angles his face up to look at--

“What the _fuck_ ,” he says, zero inflection in his tone. The laugh that bursts forward is mean and unexpected. “What are you _wearing_ , holy shit, look at you!”

He can’t see Derek’s face very well between the Ray Bans and the mountain man aesthetic he’s captured with his beard, but he imagines he can see Derek’s eye roll in his posture, the way his arms cross. 

But then Derek relaxes a bit, sweeps his hat off of his head, pulls the sunglasses of his face, shrugs out of the letterman jacket, and faces Stiles in a dumb tank top and shredded jorts that end a couple inches above his knees. Stiles has the surreal thought of _even his_ knees _are attractive_ before he gets himself together.

He punches Derek’s shoulder with all the strength he can muster-- which ultimately leaves him cursing, in pain, and shaking his fist out. “What the _fuck_ ,” he groans. 

Derek’s eyebrows are near his hairline. “What,” he intones.

Doubled over, scowling, Stiles says, “Why are you here? Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“I didn’t even know I was going to be here until,” Derek checks his phone, “sixteen hours ago.”

Stiles’s jaw hangs open. “You knew all day?” He goes to punch Derek again-- pain be damned-- but Derek jerks out of the way, glaring at him. “You didn’t warn me!”

“It was supposed to be a surprise!” Derek argues back. “Scott and Lydia--”

“Scott?” Stiles interrupts, face screwing up. Then-- “Oh my _god_ ,” he breathes. “That mother _fucker_!” But he laughs as realization dawns. “ _You_ motherfuckers!” He accuses next, slapping Derek’s chest with the back of his hands, his knuckles rapping against Derek’s sternum. “You were going to let me think I was having a bad high!”

“I came upstairs, didn’t I?” Derek asks, rubbing at his chest with a grimace. 

“Uh-huh. _After_ I said I was going to have a freaking panic attack. I know your game, Hale.” Now Derek does roll his eyes, and it sends a thrill up Stiles’s spine to _see_ it. In person! “God, this is so weird.”

Derek gives him a _you think?_ look and turns around to examine the room. His attention only draws Stiles’s attention to it-- the cornflower blue walls, the twin-sized bed shoved in the corner, the posters and trophies and bookshelves lining the walls and the pristine computer desk on the opposite wall. 

“I moved out after college,” he says in a rush, “but my place is, like, tiny, so most of my stuff couldn’t come with me. I keep telling my dad to sell it but, uh…”

Derek glances back at him, his expression carefully blank as he studies the bookshelf closest to him. There’s a photo of Stiles and Scott as kids caught under Stiles’s mother’s arms. If Derek has any thoughts about it-- or even notices it at all-- he keeps them to himself, running his fingers thoughtfully over the DVDs Stiles left here when he moved out.

It’s weird seeing Derek in space that is so fundamentally _Stiles’s_ , Stiles thinks. He expected Derek to stick out like a sore thumb, all stupid good looks and expensive clothes crafted to look ordinary but still too nice for any average person to afford. But in his dumb jorts and tank top-- which show off his knees, his calves, his _arms_ , holy god-- Stiles feels less star struck than he might have anticipated and more like a nervous teenager trying to ask a girl out all over again.

Only Derek’s not a girl, and Stiles has only hypothetical knowledge of how to pick up hot guys. 

(To be fair, his knowledge of picking up girls is largely hypothetical, too, but it’s unfamiliar territory that he’s _kind of_ familiar with? sort of?). On top of that-- Derek’s not just a _guy_. He’s Stiles’s _soulmate_ -guy. The guy that, someday, will probably be the most important person in Stiles’s _entire life_. And Stiles hadn’t expected to see him tonight at all, so he’s wearing old shabby khakis that don’t fit him well at all and a dumb red v-neck shirt and, and, and--

_THIS IS HOW I SHOW MY LOVE!_

They both groan at the same time as the familiar SAIL remix floats up through the floor, bass booming. 

“Why,” Derek asks, voice flat. 

“Happy birthday to me?” Stiles asks, wincing at the unimpressed look Derek maintains. “Do you want to-- um-- go outside, maybe?”

“I don’t want to go back out there,” Derek says, jerking his head towards the door. 

“What? Shit, no way,” Stiles scoffs. “I mean,” he tilts his head towards the window, towards the roof beyond it, “outside.”

Derek follows the movement to stare out the window. The window faces the street, and in order to climb onto the roof properly they’d have to step onto the awning above the front porch and then sort of leap onto the roof over the garage and scramble up and the to the side, where Stiles likes to go when he doesn’t want to be found. He’s surprised to find that offering that space to Derek makes him nervous, makes him hold his breath waiting for Derek’s answer.

“Sure,” Derek decides after a beat, and Stiles relaxes.

“Cool-- take my hand, and follow my feet, okay? It’s a little unstable in some places.”

At that, Derek looks mildly horrified, but when Stiles gets his feet out of the window sill and reaches for Derek’s hand, Derek gives it to him easy as can be, and together they climb out and up, up, up.

***

“When are you leaving?” is the first thing Stiles asks after they’ve settled onto the roof, their legs sprawled out towards the gutters and Derek’s right knee brushing against Stiles’s left. Stiles has his hands behind him, leaning back casually, where Derek is sitting mostly upright, not sure what to do with his hands.

“Tomorrow, I think,” he says. “Lydia booked the hotel room for the night, and I think she wants to be gone as soon as possible.”

Stiles seems to consider that-- in Derek’s peripheral vision he can see him tilting his head to the side. “Well, thanks for coming. I know it’s-- weird.”

Weird doesn’t begin to cover it. In the course of one night, Derek has heard twelve remixes to SAIL approximately eight times each, got grinded against on the dance floor, and went on a wild goose chase for his soulmate-- all while wearing jorts and fake facial hair.

“It’s your birthday,” he says, turning his head to catch Stiles’s gaze. “I wanted to be here.”

Stiles had his mouth open to say something, but nothing comes out, and Derek imagines he can see the ghost of a flush creep into his cheeks. “Oh,” Stiles says eventually. “Well, um, still. Thanks?”

Derek shrugs. He rubs his hands restlessly against the tops of his thighs, the skin between his knees-- like he’s cold, even though he’s not, not really.

“Hey,” Stiles says, his voice soft. He catches Derek’s elbow in a strong grip, but he doesn’t squeeze. “Hold on, let me,” and he sits up, bending his knees to sit cross-legged at Derek’s side. He looks at Derek inquisitively, like he’s concerned. “Are you cold?”

Derek’s whole arm feels like it’s on _fire_ just from Stiles’s touch; he couldn’t be further from cold, now. “Maybe.”

Stiles huffs. “Shouldn’t have taken off your stupid jacket, then,” he teases, pinching Derek’s bare bicep. But he shrugs out of his topmost layer-- a flannel plaid in red white and blue that he grabbed before they crawled out the window-- and drops it over Derek’s shoulders instead. It... does something to Derek, maybe. Makes him feel a lot of things he’s not ready to examine.

“Are you going to give me your pin, next?” he teases.

Stiles narrows his eyes. “If I offered you my pin, you’d take it and be _grateful_.” 

Derek hums. Maybe he would.

That makes Stiles harrumph and cross his arms. Then he knocks his side against Derek’s. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” he demands.

Derek hums again. 

“If you’re trying to annoy me,” Stiles huffs, “it’s totally working.”

Now Derek smirks, smug.

“But I should warn you that you acting like a huge bitch is also kind of doing it for me?”

And that’s-- what? Derek jerks his head around, staring at Stiles. He’s not sure how to read the look Stiles is giving him-- like he’s proud of himself, maybe, for saying it, for getting Derek’s attention, for startling the smugness right out of him.

“I warned you in LA that I was into it,” Stiles reminds him.

Derek, thrown, has nothing to say to that. He stares at him as a sly grin takes over Stiles’s face, and, yeah, he’s definitely flushed a little, the apples of his cheeks rosy even though the air outside is sweet, nowhere near cold yet with the unseasonable warmth hanging heavy in the air.

He stares at him, silent, and Stiles stares back, a suspended moment between them before Stiles’s eyes flicker down for just a moment-- his eyelashes dark smudges against his cheek that’s taken on an iridescence under the moonlight-- and he draws a breath before looking back up and slowly, like approaching an easily-startled animal, begins to lean in.

***

Derek lets Stiles come close enough that Stiles can taste his breath, that he has to close his eyes to keep Derek from becoming a cyclops, that he can _feel_ him on some level, his presence right there, so close.

Then Derek puts three fingers to Stiles’s mouth and presses, gently, keeping Stiles at bay. Stiles looks up at him, then, and tries his damnedest not to let the rejection inherent in the gesture knot him up inside, but he already knows it’s a losing battle.

Derek whispers, “We shouldn’t,” and Stiles whispers back, against Derek’s fingers, “I want to.”

That makes Derek smile a little-- the edge of his lips quirking up just a bit. “You’ll get sick,” he says.

“How do you know _you_ won’t get sick,” Stiles accuses, still whispering-- why are they whispering? 

“I don’t. So we shouldn’t.”

And, damn it. Stiles doesn’t _want_ to risk Derek getting sick, but--

“I want to,” he whispers again, feeling his lips drag against Derek’s fingers, “Derek, I --”

“You think I don’t want to?” Derek asks, voice so soft Stiles has to strain to listen for it over _this is how an angel dies, blame it on my own surprise_. He doesn’t want to wear his thoughts on his sleeve, but he pulls away all the same, feeling bitter, wanting to lash out, and Derek catches him by the nape of the neck. “Stiles,” he says, voice insistent, “I _want_ to.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Right, I get it. It’s cool.” He pulls himself upright a little more, not wanting to look vulnerable or--

Then the world is spinning a little, and with a quiet _oof_ , he’s on his back, starfished, and Derek’s hand is pillowing his head against the roof’s shingles while Derek himself is hovering over him, his expression serious in the shadows cast across it.

“I want to,” he repeats, his voice soft. He’s on his hands and knees above Stiles, effectively boxing him in against the roof. His fingers are fanned out against the shingles, close enough to Stiles’s face that he could lay his cheeks on either one of Derek’s hands if he turned his head.

It’s hard to say how long they stay like that-- minutes? seconds? Stiles can’t tell. Their breaths are too quiet to hear over the low hum of the music that’s repeating, now, _this is how I show my love, this is how I show my love, this is how, this is how, this is how I show my love_.

Slowly, Stiles regains some of his composure. The indignant-resentful feeling that had been clawing at his chest has been effectively shattered to pieces by the intimacy of the position Derek’s put them in, and the way Derek’s eyes keep lingering on his lips makes Stiles feel bold. 

The irony is that Stiles could kiss Derek all the easier like this, with Derek hovering so close, but he doesn’t. Instead, he curls his fingers around Derek’s wrist and angles his face up to catch his eyes, hoping that the set of his chin looks like a challenge and not like a warning; it wouldn’t be the first time someone he was interested in got the wrong idea about what he wanted.

Derek exhales sharply through his nose, and it sounds like a laugh for all that it’s not really a sound at all, and a smile takes over his face, his teeth almost supernaturally bright even in the shadows.

“Ugh,” Stiles says with feeling, using his other hand to shove Derek’s face away from him a little. “Get that out of here, no one needs to see that.”

That makes him roll his eyes, which apparently is never not going to make something go warm and liquid in Stiles’s belly, wow. Stiles’s hand is flat on his cheek still, and, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, Derek turns his face into the touch and presses a kiss to the center of Stiles’s palm.

“Uh,” Stiles says.

Derek smirks at him and kisses his hand again.

“Stop it!” Stiles hisses, jerking his hand away. That just lights up something playful and teasing in Derek, and he snaps his teeth at Stiles’s retreating fingers. “Oh, so when I try to kiss you it’s all ‘we can’t, Stiles,’” here he uses air quotes in the most mocking manner he can muster, “but you go all big-bad-wolf on me when I try to stop you from laying one on me. I see how it is.”

“Those kisses don’t count,” Derek insists, shifting his weight a little so he’s leaning back on his haunches, his knees on either side of Stiles’s. The way his tank top makes his arms look when he crosses them is _obscene._

Stiles follows him up into a sitting position, closing the distance between them again. “The hell they don’t,” he says, pressing his advantage a little to get his face near Derek’s, his head tilted back so his lips can brush the edge of Derek’s jaw. 

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek bites out, sounding winded-- much to Stiles’s utter delight. 

“That’s my name,” Stiles murmurs, “don’t wear it out.”

The noise Derek makes is furious, like he cannot believe-- “You are so--”

Before he can finish the thought, Stiles gets his arms around him and flips them, putting Derek on his back, his legs sprawled with Stiles between them, his mouth open a little and his eyes wide and surprised. The ten-year-old in Stiles wants to screech _pinned ya!_ but he’s too busy putting his mouth to Derek’s neck and making Derek squirm.

“Stiles,” he chokes.

“These kisses don’t count,” he teases back, and Derek _laughs_.

“Remember this moment when one or both of us ends up sick on your birthday,” he warns. 

“I plan to remember this moment for a lot longer than _that,_ ” Stiles says lasciviously, eyes glued to the spot where Derek’s tank top has ridden up and his shorts have slipped low.

With a dramatically put-upon sigh, Derek asks, “Are you done?” When Stiles looks up at his face again, Derek’s got his arms up and bent, hands locked together and cradling his head, and he’s smirking at Stiles. 

“That’s not a good look for you if you don’t want me to kiss you,” Stiles tells him.

Derek shrugs. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

It takes a few seconds of unattractive gawking for Stiles to make sense of that. He licks his lip, anxious, and puts his hands-- his fingers twitching-- in Derek’s tank top, smoothing it down to cover the soft, revealed skin of his belly. Suddenly every inch of him is too much.

“Seriously?” he asks, squinting at Derek’s face, trying to find the joke in the lines around his eyes, the curve of his mouth. “Don’t mess with me, here, I’m--”

He’s upright, leaning back on his calves, his knees between Derek’s splayed thighs and his hands knotting up the front of Derek’s stupid shirt; he can feel the sweat gathering on the back of his neck, behind his ears, down his sides.

Slowly, carefully, Derek curls forward-- doesn’t even need his hands to help him move, just flexes his core muscles and is _there_ , in Stiles’s space, looking at him with mercurial eyes and a ghost of a smile on his face. His knees come up, too, bent and knocking Stiles in the sides, making him sway a little.

“Not messing with you,” Derek says. They’re whispering again, apparently, and the intimacy of it shakes Stiles to the core. He wants to rewind, go back to the joking-- he can handle the joking and the teasing affection they’d been working. That was good.

This is unnerving.

With this, there’s no room to retreat, so Stiles takes a hand to his cheek, rubbing gingerly at half of his face and resists the urge to slap himself silly. Derek watches him silently, and his mouth settles into a shape that’s a little more serious, less challenging and more concerned. Stiles wants to pinch him into submission a little, make the patronizing expression go away.

“This is so dumb,” he says instead, laughing at himself. “It’s not like we haven’t kissed before.”

“It’s a little dumb,” Derek agrees. That earns him a scowl. “But I’m nervous too.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him. “You just don’t want me to throw up on you again.”

There’s the hint of a smile, again, right at the edge of Derek’s mouth. “That’s part of it.”

It’s hard to keep eye contact with him up close like this, so Stiles looks away, rubbing at his neck and the back of his head in the restless habit he’s had ever since he was a little kid, ever since the first time he got his hair buzzed. Derek catches his wrist, though-- and his hand feels huge wrapped around it.

Derek catches him up, pulls Stiles’s own hand away from his face where he was smushing his skin around anxiously, and it kicks up a fluttery, vaguely nauseating feeling in Stiles’s stomach. Then, with one thumb pressed to the skipping pulse in Stiles’s wrist, Derek puts his other thumb to the middle of Stiles’s lips and presses.

It’s gentle-- tender, even-- for all that it effectively breaks Stiles to a million pieces. He doesn’t mean to whine, then, it just sort of happens. Derek doesn’t smile when he hears it; if anything, his expression gets more serious, more calculating.

He gives Stiles a long, hard look that probably only lasts a few seconds but manages to feel like eternity. Then his eyes close, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, and leans forward to close the breath of space between them.

It’s not a kiss they share, really, because Derek’s lips only truly press against the back of his own thumb, but Stiles-- he _clings_. Fists his hands up tight in Derek’s hair and pulls him in, in, in, until Derek’s dragging his thumb down, opening Stiles’s mouth, and then taking his thumb away entirely with a quiet snarl.

Then they’re both clinging. Derek claws at Stiles’s back through his t-shirt while Stiles’s hands-- as restless as ever-- keep yanking at Derek’s hair, making him move this way and that, getting him closer and closer to Stiles can try to practically crawl inside of him.

Derek’s mouth is as hot and wet as Stiles has ever dreamed it would be-- hotter even than it was that first night in LA, when Derek was too exhausted to be on his game. It’s devastating being on the receiving end of his full attention, now, when those huge hands start to rub up and down Stiles’s sides, sending sparks down his spine, make him gasp into Derek’s open mouth so Derek can taste the sound off Stiles’s lips.

It’s Derek who started it, and it’s Derek who ends it-- pulling away slowly, reluctantly, and pressing apologetic kisses to Stiles’s mouth every time Stiles makes a regretful, unhappy noise. Eventually, they end up apart again-- barely-- panting for air and staring glassy-eyed at each other, struck dumb in the moonlight.

Before either of them can say anything, there’s a whoop from below and an entire crowd of people start clapping; Stiles clambers to his feet, looks down and-- yeah. A group of his party guests are down there, cheering on someone in a toga doing a keg stand.

“I hope it’s Liam,” Stiles tells Derek, “and I hope he slips and falls on his face.”

Derek snorts. “Whatever makes you happy,” he says vaguely. Then, in a twisted little sing-song, “It’s your party, you can be-a-vindictive-little-shit if you want to.”

Stiles plops back down next to him and grins. “You just _get_ me, Hale.”

Derek shakes his head, but when Stiles throws an arm around his shoulders and knocks their heads together affectionately, he goes pink up to his ears and doesn’t pull away. Downstairs, the stereo is singing _Sail with me into the dark, sail with me into the dark, sail with me, sail with me._

***

A little after one in the morning-- hours after he last saw Stiles, Scott thinks with a satisfied smirk-- Scott and Malia and Liam along with the rest of the toga-wearers usher everyone out of the house, taking a survey of any broken or stained things (nothing except a wine spill on the hardwood in the living room and a busted lamp that Stiles’s dad had picked up from a flea market, thankfully). 

Lydia and her friend-- colleague?-- Erica stay, sitting close together on the couch though they both have their phones in hand, their fingers moving a mile a minute. When everyone else is gone, Malia drops down next to them and introduces herself to Erica with a hand shoved out and, “Hey, I’m Stiles’s ex,” just to watch her squirm.

Scott’s still a little drunk, but it’s wearing off fast, and when he settles on the arm of the couch to wearily fist bump his frat brothers and sister on their way out and thank them for their help, he’s aware of Lydia’s eyes on him, scrutinizing.

“What?” he asks her once they’re all gone, and she looks away quickly like she didn’t mean to be caught staring. He smiles at her. Lydia’s still largely a mystery to him-- not even considering the fact that he has no clue what their relationship is meant to be-- but he wants to know her. Wants her to _want him_ to know her. She can stare all she wants, as far as he’s concerned, if that will make her more comfortable with him.

“Thank you guys, again,” he says-- addressing both Lydia and Erica now.

Erica waves him off. “Dude, it’s not a big deal. This was the single weirdest experience of my life, but it was pretty cool.”

“And Derek was really happy,” Lydia adds, her voice flat like she’s bored, but it’s a disinterest that Scott knows she’s affecting. She casts her gaze upwards, at the ceiling. “No telling how he’ll be when he comes down, though.”

Erica makes a rude gesture, then winks at Scott.

Malia says, “Stiles doesn’t put out on the first date,” and everyone turns to look at her, brows raised. “He _tries_ , but then he freaks out too much. Besides, last time he and Derek macked on each other Stiles barfed all over the street.”

Erica looks _delighted_. “You’re joking.”

Malia shakes her head, grinning. “Not even a little bit.”

“Was he just really, really drunk?” 

“Shakes,” Scott says, keeping his voice down.

“Oh,” Erica breathes. “Yeah, Boyd got those pretty bad with me. He never got nauseous though. Mostly just migraines. I got headaches, but nothing like his.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lydia says, head tilted to the side. “What about Cora?”

Erica shakes her head, then. “No, I don’t think any of the Hales have ever had Shake problems. Talia-- Derek’s mom-- told me she and their dad never had Shake problems, and they basically met, hooked up, and got her knocked up within a twenty-four hour window. Their dad apparently had the Shakes pretty rough the next five years while they were doing long-distance, but Talia was fine.” There’s an awkward pause while she chews on her lip, thoughtfully, before saying, “I’ve never asked about Laura.”

Scott has a vague idea about what happened with Laura Hale-- her case was one he studied a little in college in his various ethics seminars. He knows just enough about the circumstances to keep his mouth shut now, and when Malia catches his eye and quirks her brows at him in a silent question, and he shakes his head. She stays quiet.

At that point, Erica turns her body towards Lydia and Scott and asks, “How about you guys? I mean, have you even found your soulmates yet?” 

Malia chokes on air, and Scott can feel his eyes widen at her-- shocked. That’s not-- people don’t usually just _ask_ that. 

Erica looks a little guilty. “Sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I forget sometimes that not everyone shows off like me.” 

She waves her right hand around indicating the tattoo on her wrist, kept out and open for the world to see. Scott had noticed it earlier in the night but had assumed it was an ordinary tattoo because of how noticeable it is; now, he recognizes it for what it is: a soulmark. And he averts his gaze, feels his ears go hot a little. The only soulmarks he’s ever really seen have been his own and Stiles’s; he’s never even seen his mom’s since he was old enough to remember. 

He and Lydia are spared having to answer Erica’s question when the front door’s handle jingles and starts to open with a groan of protest from the old wood.

Scott gets to his feet, “Hey, the party’s--” He stops when he sees who’s standing there, looking contrite. “Allison! You made it.” He gathers her into a quick hug.

“Well, sort of,” she says when he releases her. She looks around the room. “Sorry I’m so late-- is Stiles still up?”

Scott nods. “He’s upstairs in his old room with--”

A sharp cough comes from behind him, and Scott remembers, suddenly, that Allison isn’t included in the surprise for Stiles’s birthday-- that she doesn’t know anything about what happened with Derek Hale since they came back from LA. 

So Scott says, “He had kind of a bad high tonight. He’s lying down now, but I can go get him?”

Allison nods. “If you could? I want to wish him a happy birthday and all, but there’s something else I wanted to talk to him about.”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll go get him now-- you just, take a seat, take a seat anywhere.”

She looks over his shoulder again at Lydia, Erica, and Malia who are sitting on the couch. Malia nods at her and makes a show of scooching in on the couch to make room. It’s as friendly a gesture as Scott’s ever seen Malia make to an acquaintance, but Allison inspires that in people-- no one dislikes her.

As he jogs up the stairs, he hears Lydia downstairs saying, “I’m sorry, are you Allison _Argent_?”

And Allison, shyly, says, “Guilty as charged.”

“I _loved_ your campaign for--”

***

Eventually, Stiles’s lips start to feel a little numb and his balls start to feel too blue for comfort and his stomach a little queasy, so he extracts himself from Derek’s mouth, smirking when Derek immediately goes back for another kiss.

“We should go in,” Stiles mutters, and Derek huffs. “No, really, I have to make sure my dad’s house isn’t wrecked.”

“Leave it to the guys in the togas,” Derek mutters, ducking his head again to nip at Stiles’s bottom lip and make Stiles groan. 

When he pulls away again, Stiles says, “Dude, the guys in the togas are gone. Also, I’ve got one-more-shot-and-I’ll-regret-it feeling right now. Only for kissing.”

That seems to do the trick because Derek pulls away quickly-- but not too far-- and looks guilty. Stiles shoves his face before he can do anything stupid like apologize or regret the last hour and a half of seriously great making out.

“Don’t make that face,” he huffs. “I’m _fine_. I just know that if we keep up much longer, I will be _less_ fine. So we’re going to stop now, go downstairs, make sure I’m not going to be a twenty five year old who ends up grounded for life, and go from there.”

Derek nods, and he looks so determined that Stiles has to lean in again to brush a kiss against his lips-- surprising him-- before he gets to his feet. He offers Derek his hand, and Derek takes it after a moment of consideration. He’s warm all over, and the walk back to Stiles’s window feels like he’s walking on clouds for all that he’s hardly aware of any part of his body that isn’t touching Derek.

But as he’s climbing back into the room, Scott is letting himself inside, and Stiles feels his blood run a little cold. “What’s the damage?”

Scott shrugs. “A wine stain and the cheap hall lamp got smashed, but that looks like the worst of it so far. We’ll have to do another sweep tomorrow before taking all the important stuff out of the attic and putting it back.”

Stiles squints at him. “Okay… so, what’s up?”

“Allison’s downstairs,” Scott says, and Stiles’s eyebrows go up. “She came up from LA after a shoot today, and she wants to say hey to you. And talk to you about something?”

“About what?”

Scott shrugs. “She didn’t say. But it’s not birthday stuff.”

Stiles looks at Derek, then, and shoots him a questioning look. Derek says, “I don’t even know who ‘Allison’is, why are you looking at me like that,” in one flat sentence, no inflection whatsoever.

Now Stiles shrugs. “Well, let me go see what’s up, then. I still have to thank her for her help in LA, don’t I?”

“That’d be nice,” Scott agrees.

“Are you good hiding here for a little bit?” he asks Derek next. 

Derek seems to think it over. “Is Lydia still here?”

“Yeah, she’s on the couch,” Scott says.

“I’m okay here, but can she come up here, too? We have some things to figure out about tonight and tomorrow.”

“I’ll bring her up,” Scott tells him with a nod. Then he turns to Stiles again. “Ready?”

Stiles nods, and together they head back downstairs, closing the door behind them carefully and leaving Derek on the other side of it.

“Dude,” Scott hisses, sounding excited, “you look like you just made out with a cactus.”

“In my defense, the cactus has a really great body,” Stiles says sagely, and they both crack up at that, elbowing each other playfully all the way down the stairs.

When she sees him, Allison gets to her feet, and Lydia, Malia, and a blonde girl sitting between them stare at Stiles.

The blonde says, “You’re Stiles?”

Stiles salutes her with a two-fingered wave. “Yo.”

She grins. “Erica.”

“Hey-- cool. Thank you for coming tonight, that was awesome.”

She looks pleased as she lets herself be pulled back into a conversation with Malia, and Allison gets to her feet. 

“Happy birthday, Stiles,” she says. “Sorry it’s so late, I couldn’t get away.”

“No sweat,” Stiles says, “You totally had our in back in LA-- and now you’re here for my birthday? Are you sure you’re not an actual saint?”

He can see out of the corner of his eye that Scott is collecting Lydia, leading her towards the stairs with quiet words exchanged between them, but Allison is laughing and saying, “Actually, I kind of wanted to talk to you about LA. Can we--?” she nods towards the kitchen, meaning she’d like privacy, and Stiles gets the hint and leads the way. 

“I have a business proposition for you,” Allison says when they get in there, settling against the table, standing and leaning casually. “You can say no, but it’d be a really big help to me at no cost to you.”

Stiles keeps his mouth closed, but he listens.

“I was going through the film in the camera that got dropped, and it’s-- it’s not half bad. You obviously know your way around a camera.”

“I took an elective for it in college,” Stiles says. Is this-- what he thinks it is?

“Well, that’s kind of exactly what I need,” Allison says. “I’m looking for someone I can trust, who knows how to use a camera at least a little, to work as my assistant. It’s pretty much a glorified secretary position at my studio in Los Angeles-- taking calls, keeping a guest book, come with me on a few trips when I need the extra hands abroad. That sort of thing.”

So it _is_ a job offer; Stiles’s heart is in his throat, his mouth dry. “And you--” he gestures between himself and her, “you want me?”

She shrugs. “If you’re interested. Scott told me you were looking, so I thought I’d offer. I can’t pay a lot more than minimum wage, but I have an extra bedroom at my apartment which would be all yours, no charge for rent because the place was already paid in full by my parents.”

“So you’re offering me a minimum wage job in Los Angeles with no bills?” Stiles asks, flabbergasted. 

“A little bit more than minimum wage and I’d appreciate it if you split the wifi with me,” Allison corrects.

Stiles turns away from her, scrubbing his hands over his head. He’d gone so long without any hope of getting a new job, and now he’s got _two_ in one night. One that would be comfortable-- working and living in the same town, keeping pretty much to the status quo of the rest of his currently life-- and the other that would take him to Los Angeles, closer to Derek, and upset every pattern and routine Stiles has fallen into over the past twenty-five years.

He should probably say no.

He wants to say yes.

“Can I think about it?” is what he eventually asks, turning back to her.

She nods. “Absolutely. Take all the time you need. I don’t really need another set of hands until early next year, so you’ve got time.”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay. Thanks, Allison, this is-- thanks.”

Her smile is beatific. “For what it’s worth,” she says, “I really hope you say yes.”

***

Lydia slips into the room quietly. Derek’s sitting on the edge of the twin-sized bed in the room, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. 

“I saw Stiles’s face just now,” she tells him, “so I take it this trip went well.”

Derek shakes his head, and there’s a ghost of smile at the corner of his lips. “Maybe. Did you talk to Scott at all tonight?”

She sighs and crosses her arms, leaning back against the closed door. “Allison Argent is here,” she says. “She’s just as perfect as the world thinks she is. We have a shopping date for two weekends from now, for Christmas shopping.”

Derek gives her a screwed up look, like he’s not sure how that’s supposed to answer his question.

“Scott is in love with her,” Lydia clarifies for him. “And I’m pretty sure she’s in love with him, too.” She purses her lips and resolutely ignores the bitter feeling crawling up inside of her. She steps away from the door but keeps her arms crossed like she’s holding herself as she moves across the room to sit next to Derek on the bed. “Seeing them actually made me want Scott and me to just be friends-- they’re clearly perfect for each other in a... sickeningly sweet sort of way.”

“It’s possible,” Derek says. “Platonic bonds are the most common.”

“I know that,” she sighs. “I guess it was just… disarming. To see them like that, when Scott and I are still-- unknown.”

Derek nods. After a brief, comfortable silence, he asks “Can I crash at Stiles’s place tonight?”

She gapes at him, horrified. “ _No_ you cannot crash at Stiles’s place tonight, are you an _idiot_?”

He shrugs. “It was worth asking.”

She huffs. “I give you an inch and you try to take a mile,” she says. Then, teasingly, “Typical boy.”

He laughs-- the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle, and he looks so happy it makes something inside of her clench up.

God _damn_ it. Scott’s making her soft. “You really want to go to his place?” she asks, resigned.

“I’m not sure he wants me at his place,” he admits. “But if he does, I want to go.”

She thinks about it for a long minute. There are a lot of risks involved in letting it happen because if they don’t tread lightly, it will directly connect Derek to Stiles, and that won’t be good for either of them. The more Derek warms up to Stiles, the more Lydia’s inclined to trust him herself, despite her better judgment, but she can’t let that cloud her decision now.

But if Derek could have the look on his face that Scott had just a few minutes ago when Allison Argent walked through the front door, maybe a risk or two or thirty is worth taking.

“I think we’ve pushed our luck enough as is,” she says first. “I was under the impression that this party would be a lot smaller than it was, and as much as I trust Erica’s talent with makeup, she went pretty minimalist. You’ve been in the news so much this year that the world _knows_ you. Better than they ever have before. Definitely more intimately than before.”

He nods; it’s nothing they haven’t discussed before.

“But,” and here she takes his hand in one of hers, clutches it tightly, “I want you to be happy. And you haven’t seen each other since August. And you guys haven’t messed it up yet, so. I guess we can afford to keep pushing our luck a little bit.”

The look Derek gives her is unreadable-- his eyes scanning her face to find the lie.

“Lydia,” he says, voice soft and serious, “are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says, nodding. “I’m not. it scares me. But if you can be safe and follow all of my rules about it then I can be brave.”

He hesitates for a minute before pulling his hand from her grasp and wrapping his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close. He says, “I know you don’t put a lot of faith in soulmates after everything you’ve seen--”

She closes her eyes, wills the tears not to come, not to come, not to come. But they always do, whens he thinks about Meredith-- about what happened to her, what’s happened to Derek, what she was so helpless to do to help in both circumstances.

“-- so thank you.” He presses a kiss to her temple, and she sniffs delicately, once, twice, and retracts herself to push the tears off her face before turning to him again.

“I meant it about the rules, though,” she says darkly. “First,” she puts up one finger, “Erica and I will take you there about half an hour after he leaves so no one sees you riding together. Second, we’re still leaving at six in the morning tomorrow, so you only get a few hours before you need to be awake, downstairs, and still in your fake beard and aviators when we get there. We’ll be there at about ten-til; I want us out of this town by six.”

“Anything else?” Derek asks, looking amused.

She says, “Please take care of yourself, Derek,” and makes him promise.

***

In the end, Stiles _does_ want Derek to come home with him. He looks worn out; there are dark bags under his eyes and something a little purple under his skin in general. Derek watches him carefully as he leaves his dad’s place, twirling his key ring restlessly around one finger and catching it in his palm then doing it again and again and again before nodding jerkily, meeting Derek’s eyes briefly, and leaving to get into his Jeep.

Sometime before Derek and Lydia came down from Stiles’s old room-- retrieved by Malia who’d said, “Time to go. I gotta lock this bad boy up and get home to my very drunk and very cute fiancée!” -- Scott had taken Allison back to his place for the night to keep her from running into Derek. They’d never run in exactly the same circles, but they’d met before briefly a little over ten years ago when Derek was just getting to know Kate.

No matter how well-meaning Allison probably was-- and Lydia has suspicions that Allison knew about Stiles’s reasons for being in LA-- Derek was still technically trying to avoid being recognized, so her leaving was probably for the best. 

Still, Derek looks at Lydia for a beat after Stiles leaves, when Malia is going through the house and making sure everything is locked and Erica pees one last time.

“What?” she demands. Her eyeliner is smudged just a little; it’s charming.

“Did you and Scott--?” He has no idea how he should finish that question, so he doesn’t.

“He has my number,” she says, not quite shrugging but looking away in a calculated manner that has the same effect. “We’ll see from there, I guess.”

Then Erica is there. She’s pulled her hair up into a ponytail on her head and most of her lipstick is gone. “All set?” she asks.

“We can lock the house now,” Malia says, coming out of the dark kitchen and turning off more lights in her wake. “I need to do one more round to make sure there are no weirdos hiding in the tree line, but you guys can leave.”

Lydia leads the way, lets Derek into the back seat of the car before climbing into the passenger seat herself and keying Stiles’s address into the GPS, and when Erica settles into the driver’s seat and wakes up the engine, they’re off.

The ride over is quiet; they’re all too tired to say much of anything, but Derek doesn’t doubt that Lydia is cataloging everything they pass to memory and determining the risk they’re putting themselves in every block along the way. She hums a soft tune, almost thoughtlessly, for about three minutes before she catches herself and the car goes quiet again.

“Hey,” Erica says, and Derek jerks a little because he must have fallen asleep in the twenty minute trip across town to Stiles’s apartment complex, which is clearly where they are now. “You all set?”

He nods, and Lydia clambers out of the car to let him out, looking infinitely more worn out than she did less than half an hour ago. He tries to wave them off, send them towards the hotel, but she sets her chin and says, “I’m walking you in, dumbass,” and then does just that.

Stiles has a doormat that says “Hi, I’m Mat!” on it, and he’s left his door propped open with the deadbolt set on the inside of the doorframe, easy to push open. Derek shoots Lydia a look, and she stares back for a beat before nodding and turning down the hallway towards the elevator. He’s still barefoot, he realizes, just before she disappears.

Then, carefully, Derek pushes the door and takes his first step into Stiles’s studio apartment.

It’s a bullet-shaped room, long and narrow, with a brick wall boasting a window that opens up and leads out to the fire escape. To his immediate right is the kitchenette, to his immediate left is a wall with a door attached to it that’s probably the bathroom. Stiles’s bed has been shoved into the back right corner, and there’s a tiny loveseat and coffee table-ottoman combo set about five feet in front of a twenty-inch flat screen that’s stacked on top of a bookcase that’s overflowing with video games and consoles.

Stiles is sitting on the couch and gnawing on the side of his finger. He looks up at the sound of the door falling open, then scampers to his feet in a rush. 

“Hey,” he says, “come in, sorry, I didn’t…” and then trails off, like he’s not sure what he didn’t either.

Derek takes one look at him and says, “You look exhausted.”

The corner of Stiles’s mouth lifts a little. “Yeah, but it’s a good exhausted, I swear.”

Something smells a little like Lysol, and the sickly tint to Stiles’s skin seems to have only gotten worse. “You got sick,” Derek says, something guilty and resentful twisting in his stomach.

Stiles is in his space immediately, ducking his head to meet Derek’s heated glare that’s directed resolutely at the floor. “Hey, only a little bit,” he says, trying to be reassuring, no doubt. He reaches out to touch Derek’s shoulder, and Derek jerks away. 

Something goes tight around Stiles’s jaw, and his eyes narrow. 

“Don’t be an asshole,” he grits out. “Not like this, anyway. I can do mouthy and sarcastic. Glaring and shutting down is a really good way to piss me off, though. Fair warning.”

The words land like a physical blow, and Derek goes tight all over. It’s not-- he doesn’t want to piss Stiles off, but _damn it,_ he didn’t want to get Stiles sick in the first place. 

“Besides,” Stiles says, the heat in his voice slipping away into something teasing again, “I’m already pissed at the fact that you _still_ haven’t gotten all Shakey while I’m two for two here. You don’t want to give me more than one reason to be pissed.” He’s smiling a little, inviting Derek to take the out and leave the tension that cropped up there behind them.

Derek takes it. “I didn’t want you to be pissed at all,” he breathes, dropping his head to rest it on Stiles’s shoulder. Stiles goes still for a beat before he hesitantly raises a hand to the nape of Derek’s nape and brushes his long fingers through the fine hairs there, soothing. Something inside of Derek unwinds at the sensation and settles again after a minute, so much looser than before. “We shouldn’t have--” he fumbles for the right description of what they’d done on the roof that doesn’t sound stupid as hell and eventually just leaves the words out entirely and moves on, “-- for so long.”

“If I’d known that I was going to get sick anyway, I would have kept doing it way longer,” Stiles says, shrugging. Derek snorts into his shoulder. 

At some point Stiles changed out of his khakis and into a pair of navy pajama pants that have N7 printed on the right hip. He’s still wearing the same red t-shirt from the party and white socks with little red lines stitched across the toes. He looks soft and weary, rumpled from head to toe.

He asks, “Do you want to borrow something to sleep in? You look pretty close to my size-- though everything I have may be tight around your thighs.”

Derek considers it for a minute before saying, “I can sleep in my boxers, if that’s cool.”

“I’m three rounds of barfing past being able to get an awkward boner, so I think we’re good,” Stiles jokes. Then he untangles himself from Derek and says, “You can hop into bed, I’ll turn off the light.”

It means Stiles has his back to him when Derek slips out of the jorts, his shoes, and his jacket and stumbles towards the bed in only his plain black boxers and stupid tank top. He’s halfway under the blanket before the light shuts off, throwing the room into darkness and leaving Stiles to find his way back to the bed blind.

Derek’s eyes are just starting to adjust when he feels Stiles drop onto the bed beside him, the two of them pressed close together on the twin sized bed, facing each other but not really being able to see each other. They shift and twist for the first few minutes with Stiles trying to get under the blankets and Derek trying to press himself as far against the wall as possible until eventually they settle with their knees brushing, both of them on their sides, and Derek’s eyes have adjusted enough for him to make out Stiles’s face in the shadows.

They’re quiet for a few seconds before Stiles says, whispering, “Hey,” and inches a little bit closer.

“Hey,” Derek says back. “I’m glad you didn’t have a panic attack tonight.”

Stiles laughs. “Uh-huh. No thanks to you.” His eyes are closed, now, but he’s smiling. “Thanks for finding me before it got bad.”

“Are you still high?”

“It wore off pretty fast when I thought I was hallucinating.”

“Drunk?”

Stiles opens his eyes to consider that. “Probably a little, but the barfing helped.” He shifts again-- presumably to scratch the side he’s laying on-- and when he’s done he ends up another inch closer to Derek. “So thank you for that.”

Derek grimaces and rolls onto his back. “Don’t thank me for making you throw up,” he sighs.

“Hey,” Stiles suddenly jerks, a newfound urgency in his tone, “my breath doesn’t stink does it? I think I Listerined at least eighty times, but you can never be sure…”

“I don’t think I thought about--” Derek tries to say, but then Stiles rolls onto his stomach, pushes himself up onto his elbows, and blows into Derek’s face. It makes Derek screw up his face, bemused, and he says, “Minty fresh, now stop,” and shoves Stiles playfully, nearly sending him toppling over the side of the bed.

Stiles is all shoulders-shaking laughter, eyes catching the low streetlight filtering in through the window over them. He’s ethereal in the light-- the contrast between his dark hair and pale skin made otherworldly in the yellow haze.

“I got a job offer tonight,” he tells Derek, which is surprising enough that Derek has to raise his eyes. “Actually, I got two.”

“I didn’t know you were looking for a new job,” Derek says. He hadn’t, and that’s such a huge thing to not know about someone-- about your _soulmate_ \-- that he finds himself face-to-face again with the distance that still exists between them, exacerbated by the miles and miles of road stretching between Los Angeles and Beacon Hills.

Stiles’s closed-lipped smile is a bitter, sharp thing. “So,” he says, “I kind of suck at my job? Or, well, I don’t really like my job, and it’s making me suck at it. Either way. I basically got told to nut up or shut up and leave by my boss a few months ago, and it’s been pretty hard.”

“But now you have two offers,” Derek says. “That’s good.” He wishes he could mean it, but the entire topic has blindsided him, and something in his gut tells him that there’s a reason Stiles is telling him this, and the only reason he’d do that was if he was _moving away_. He tries to follow the resentful feelings that crops up by asking, mildly, “Where are they at?”

Stiles settles into bed again fully, this time on his side and looking at Derek. “One’s just a lateral promotion in the place I’m working now, going from assisting customers to being the guy who comes up with all the methods and training materials and whatnot for techs.” He draws a quiet, shaky breath. “The next would be working for Allison as her secretary-slash-assistant.” He waits a beat and then adds, “so I’d have to move to LA.”

Derek sucks in a sharp breath at that. It’s-- ideal, if he’s being honest. Having Stiles in his town, around, _nearby_ sounds like everything he’s wanted for the last four and a half months. The selfish part of him wants to tell Stiles that that’s what he should do, that LA would make him happy, that Derek would be there for him every step of the way…

But, logically, he knows it wouldn’t be like that. Especially not while they’re still keeping Stiles’s existence and importance to Derek out of public knowledge. If Stiles moved to LA, their meetings wouldn’t be much different from this-- stolen moments in the dark when they were able to calculate the risks and make educated decisions based on them. Stiles would be alone, in a city that he doesn’t really know, for most of his time while settling in. Derek can’t make promises that it will be any different when he owes his time to so many different people.

So he’s careful when he asks, “Do you know what you’re going to do yet?”

Stiles shakes his head. “I just wanted to let you know that I had options. And I don’t know if LA is something I’m ready to commit to. It’s just… you know.”

“I know,” Derek says, and Stiles smiles at him-- soft and sincere under the blanket of night spread across them. Then he shifts again to lie on his stomach, arms stretched up and folded under his pillow. He throws his arm out across Derek’s stomach a moment later, like it was a decision he had to think on. Derek smiles up at the ceiling, runs a thumb down the back of Stiles’s wrist to make his fingers twitch violently, and lets sleep drag him under.

It’s light sleeping-- the sleep of a man who knows his phone alarm is going to go off in less than four hours-- but, nevertheless, Derek sleeps and he _dreams_.

He’s too close to the surface for deep dreaming, but the feeling he gets as he rests is one of warmth, teasing affection, and a bone-deep _rightness_. It’s the subconscious feeling he gets every time he dreams of Stiles, and that’s no different now for all that the dreamscape is dark, undefined, nothing familiar.

His dreams are little more than the essence of Stiles, and, as such, it is some of the most restful sleep Derek’s ever managed to have in his life.

***

  

  

  

### DECEMBER

Stiles has a theory.

It’s been sitting quietly in the back of his mind for a few months now, gathering evidence and getting stronger, while he went about his daily routine-- coming home and falling asleep around eight-thirty in the morning, staying asleep until almost three in the afternoon, stumbling blearily out of bed to fuck around with Resident Evil 40020’s mercenary challenges for a few hours before eating two hot pockets and going to work. 

And falling asleep with Derek pressed against his side a few days ago only tested his theory-- and his theory stood up. Sort of.

Not that he was thinking about the theory at the time. No, he’d been thinking about Caitlin and Allison’s offers, and about what those each would mean for him and Derek and their bond. The more logical side of him said he needed to take the promotion Caitlin was offering. There would always be other job opportunities in Los Angeles later, when he and Derek were standing on more steady ground.

But there had been a moment somewhere between sleeping and dreaming, just after Derek’s alarm sounded from his phone, when Stiles had stirred-- aware, on some level that wasn’t quite up to _caring_ yet, that at some point he’d used Derek’s shoulder as a pillow and had probably, knowing his luck, drooled on him or something-- and felt Derek moving in the dark of his apartment. Derek had been quiet and careful as he extracted himself from Stiles and from the bed, turned off his alarm, and gathered up his clothes.

Then, when Stiles flipped onto his back with a groan and blinked blearily up at Derek, Derek had settled next to him on the bed as he shrugged into his stupid letterman. 

“You outtie?” he’d asked. 

Derek nodded. He looked sleepy, tousled, happy-- like everything Stiles has dreamt of waking up next to his whole life. It was enough to make LA seem like a way better plan than it ever could be.

And, in the time since his birthday, it’s lingered. Stiles catches himself up at work, halfway through a story about how his soulmate played basketball in high school with a customer whose entire computer is decked out in baseball shit. Nevermind that Derek has never told him that-- it was something he’d picked up with that first touch back in August-- it’s still _weird_.

But it’s the best customer interaction he’s ever had at work, and the guy asks to speak to his supervisor when he’s finished the call, wanting to sing Stiles’s praises, and who is Stiles to turn that down? 

It buys him a few minutes off the floor while the fourth shift supervisor takes over his headset to take the compliment, and Stiles wanders into the break room to go back to reading on his phone.

Because he has a theory, and it’s been a vague thing until this past weekend, and now it’s no longer a passing thought but the focus of his attention whenever he gets the chance to think for himself.

The dream he’d had with Derek in his bed had been warm and glowy and satisfied-- like their tentative bond made real and tangible, right there. And it’s the sort of dream that there’s a _lot_ of research about out there-- in journals and blog posts and court reports-- because that’s the sort of dream that dream sharers have when the sleep together while touching.

And that’s-- 

It makes something hot and embarrassed crawl up Stiles’s spine whenever he thinks about that, about the possibility of all of his dreams with Derek having been _shared_. Since the beginning. Since Stiles was _sixteen_ , oh God. 

But there’s a study from Cornell from about a decade ago that documents instances of evolving soulmate dreams-- from dreaming _about_ someone to dreaming _with_ someone. The report, of course, explains that it’s not a true evolution, as every case they found had a clear before and after-- and a clear catalyst: the soulmates’ first touch.

Stiles doesn’t understand about 90% of the language in the report, but what he gathers from it is that it’s a pretty rare phenomenon-- estimated to show in only 11% of soulmate couples that experience dream-based premonitions, which is already only about 18% of the population-- and that 100% of the subjects reported a marked difference between the dreams they had pre-touch and post-touch. 

Before Stiles can focus any more on that he hears a sharp, “Stilinski! You’re set! Good job!” from the supervisor who’d taken his call, so he has to go back to work.

*

“I saw the lamp,” his dad says over the phone the next time Stiles calls him. “Or what was left of it, anyway.”

“Scott and I are going to replace it this weekend,” Stiles promises. He has the phone perched between his ear and his shoulder, his attention split between his father and Saints Row IV.

“Uh huh. Anything else I should be on the lookout for?”

“No, we shoved all the important stuff in the attic on Friday.”

“Smart.”

“Learned from the smartest!” Stiles gloats, proud, and pauses the game.

His dad snorts.

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I... might have a job? Maybe?”

“Hey!” his dad exclaims. “That’s _great_. I’m really proud of you, son. What is it?”

“Well, it’s actually two might-maybe jobs. One is a lateral move from where I am now to an innovation position where I’d basically be coming up with and writing down new procedures for troubleshooting. The other is kind of a long shot, and I don’t think I’ll take it, but I could go be a secretary at an art studio in Los Angeles.”

His dad seems to consider that for a beat before saying, “So you’d be close to Derek.”

Stiles lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d be holding. “Yeah, I would be. But we’re still-- you know. Figuring it out or whatever.” He shifts the phone from one shoulder to the next. “Besides, I don’t know if it’d be the right fit for me, you know?”

“Is this about the money?” his dad asks. “I know Los Angeles is expensive but--”

“No, it’s not about the money,” Stiles huffs, exasperated. “It’s just like, hey, I don’t know jack shit about art. I took one photography class in college and now Allison wants me to help her? It feels a lot like charity.” 

That’s the other thing that’s been bothering him. Allison is Scott’s sweetheart, and she suddenly has this great job offer to make to some lucky bastard, and _Stiles_ is the dude she picks just because of a few camera shots he took? In his experience, if it sounds too good to be true like that, it usually is.

“You could learn more,” his dad says. “You’ve always soaked shit up like a sponge if you got interested in it.”

“Yeah, but I can’t exactly choose what is and isn’t interesting to me. And photography is okay, sure, but it’s not-- I don’t _really_ care about it. I don’t want to commit to something that completely changes my whole life and then suck at it. I’d just feel like an idiot.”

“Stiles,” his dad sighs, sounding unconvinced.

“I’m being serious!”

“Kid, I love you, but let’s not pretend that you’re not the dumbass who used all his vacation to go to Los Angeles on a whim and pose as a paparazzi to meet his soulmate, okay? You’ve never cared about feeling like an idiot-- but you never could live with yourself if you didn’t take the chance.”

Stiles sucks in a breath. “Hey,” he breathes, “who said you could get all wise and paternal all of a sudden?”

“I’m always wise and paternal,” says his dad, “you just don’t like to _listen_.” Stiles opens his mouth to argue-- he listens! almost half the time he listens! at least a solid one-fourth!-- but his dad keeps going. “You know this town, son. It never changes. If you get to Los Angeles and it’s awful, you hate it, you want to come home… you can always do that. You’ve got a room here, and a whole hell of a lot of people who love you, and that’s not gonna change anytime soon.”

Stiles lets that sink in for a little while and _refuses_ to cry. He will not cry. He’s twenty-five years old, he’s outgrown this shit. 

“I love you, Dad,” he mutters, blinking back tears.

“Love you too, kiddo.”

*

**Hey, do you have time to skype?**

**I’m meeting my manager now, but I should be free by noon.**

**Cool.**  
 **It’s nothing like SUPER important**  
 **Just figuring stuff out**

**About the job offers?**

**Yeah**

**I’ll be out of this meeting in fifteen minutes if you want me to call you.**

**Do we do that yet?**

**We can do whatever you want.**

**UNWISE words buddy**  
 **That’s how I con you into grand theft auto**  
 **Grand theft this-dick-I-work-with’s-house**  
 **Grand theft THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE**

**I don’t think it works like that.**

**YOU said whatever I want**  
 **I’m just making a point!!!**

**No, I mean I don’t think you just stick ‘grand theft’ in front of everything you steal.**  
 **There’s no way that’s the legal terminology.**

**…**  
 **Ok so**  
 **I’m taking that as you admitting that you would totally help me steal the declaration of independence and I want you to know that I’ve never been more attracted to you than I am in this moment**

  
*

The call comes in while Stiles is trying to slip through the window out to the fire escape, his foot caught on the sill by its laces so that no amount of awkward flailing or tugging can get it to come through.

“Can I call you back in, like, point-nine seconds?” Stiles asks in lieu of greeting. “I’m about to fall on my face, I think.”

“Talk to you in point-nine seconds, then,” Derek says before hanging up.

Stiles doesn’t quite fall on his face, but he does manage to roll his foot forcefully enough that he slips out of his shoe and stumbles across the fire escape, the _bang bang bang thunk_ echoing up the metal grating.

He shakes himself off and calls Derek as soon as he gets settled, sitting on the landing outside of his window with his feet on the topmost step going down. 

“How’s your face?” Derek asks.

“Beautiful as ever, thanks for asking,” Stiles says, grinning. “How was your meeting thing?”

“It was just a check-in to hear about the projects she is trying to line up for me. Nothing big.”

It’s nearly enough to make Stiles sigh. “What are we going to small talk about, then? I had imagined small talk before the big stuff.”

“Oh, well, if you’d imagined it,” Derek jokes. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Just job stuff, I guess.” Now he _does_ sigh. “I know _my_ pros and con list, but what about you? You have to have an opinion, right?”

Derek’s silent for a while-- long enough that Stiles starts to twitch.

“C’mon, dude, don’t leave me hanging here,” he moans, scrubbing at his face.

It takes another second or two before Derek says anything. “You being here would be--” he searches for the word, “-- I think it could be good. But it wouldn’t be easy.”

“What’s new?” Stiles huffs.

“You think it’s tough now?” Derek asks. “Paparazzi know where I live, know my patterns and routines, and they’re going to know if anything changes. And it’s not like you’re just coming in at a tricky time-- you are _the_ thing they’re looking for. The original story has been pretty much exhausted by now, but one picture of you and me together and it’ll be blood in the water.” 

Stiles groans. “So basically what you’re saying is that if I make this move to see you more, it’s not going to do me any good?”

“We’ll see each other more,” Derek says immediately. “But it’s not exactly hard to see each other ‘more’ when we’ve only seen each other once in almost five months.”

And he’s _right_. That’s the part that blows. Stiles hadn’t even considered that moving to LA could still mean he’d only see Derek once or twice a month.

“We could make the announcement ourselves, couldn’t we?” he asks. “Pose for the cameras, give our own statements-- that sort of thing? We could come out ahead of this if we did that.”

The breath Derek draws is sharp, and it says everything Stiles needs to hear about his thoughts on that idea, but he doesn’t stop Derek when he responds. “That’s an option, but if we do that, that means that we’re inviting the press into our relationship before we’ve even really established a bond. It would be stressful, to say the least.”

“And you just don’t want to,” Stiles adds, and Derek makes an indignant noise. “What? It’s _fine_ , I’m a big boy. I can handle you not wanting to go public yet, that’s fine, but it’s still an _option_.”

It’s more than just an option-- it’s the option they could take if Stiles stays in Beacon Hills for a few more months, if they keep their relationship confined to Skyping and texting and calls just a little while longer. There’s no appeal in moving to Los Angeles if it means he won’t see Derek regularly. If he has to have a long-distance relationship, he’s sure as hell going to be _long-distance_. To be anything else would only drive him up the wall.

“You should do what feels right,” Derek says finally. “Whatever you choose, we’ll figure it out.”

“Do you ever make a decision on anything?” Stiles all but snaps. There’s a tense moment between them then before he unwinds and says, “Sorry, I’m just-- this is just rough. I’ve never had to make a decision like this, let alone figure out what feels ‘right’ about it.”

“I understand,” Derek says, voice soft. “Like I said: whatever you choose, we’ll figure it out.”

*

Caitlin is on a call when Stiles finds her about half an hour before his shift that Friday. She grins at him and waggles her fingers, holds one up and mouths _one second_ and turns away to wrap up the conversation. Stiles lingers just inside of her office, hands shoved into his pockets, and looks around awkwardly, trying to occupy himself. 

“Sorry about that. I’m all yours now,” she says, and when he turns she’s standing in front of her desk, leaning back on it. “You think about that job offer at all this week?”

He nods. “I’m going to take it. I wanted to ask when the interview thing was.”

She pumps her fists and wraps him up in a hug. “I’m so glad!” she crows. When she pulls away, she says, “The interview is-- obviously-- just a formality in this case, since I’ve already offered the job to you. From here they’ll probably get you fast tracked for training even before they sit you down and talk to you the first time. We’re _really_ understaffed, and the people who handle the hiring are out at our new branch in Johnson City, and won’t be back ‘til the New Year, but that’s when we’ll need you working.”

She’s talking so quickly that even Stiles struggles to follow. “Uh, so what do I need to do?” he asks as she moves around to the other side of her desk to fill out some papers.

“Just sit tight and wait. Do your best on the phones for now. We’re still filling two spots alongside yours, but we expect them to be filled before Christmas and ready to take the training with you.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll say so!” she laughs. “Good may be an understatement, right?”

He nods, lips pursed, and tries to shove down the unhappy, twisting feeling in his gut. Nevermind that this is the logical, _right_ choice to make to keep himself and Derek and their bond safe and nevermind that Los Angeles will always be there when he’s more ready to take this leap-- something inside of Stiles is _pining_ , no other word for it, and has been ever since Derek pressed a kiss to his forehead before slipping out of his apartment the day after Stiles’s birthday party. He’s pining, and accepting this job from Caitlin is making him feel viscerally ill. 

“You don’t look so good-- you hungry?” Caitlin asks, head cocked when he looks at her.

“Nah,” he waves his hand at her, dismissing the thought, “just tired. I gotta get back though, so…”

“Oh, absolutely, don’t let me keep you,” she says in a rush. “Go get ‘em tiger. I’m rooting for you.”

He smiles, but he knows it’s lifeless, hollow. “Thanks, Caitlin,” he says, and he wonders if he means it.

***

Sometime after the tenth buzz his phone made, Derek lost track and had just tried to tune the sound out, but five minutes later it’s still going off from the group conversation Erica made with him, Cora, and Boyd, and the three of them have been texting in it ever since. Nonstop.

In a surge of irritation so strong it feels like anger, Derek smashes down his phone’s power button, powers it off, and pitches it across the room at the wall. Then he settles back against his pillows and tries for the umpteenth time to ease his slick fingers into his asshole.

His body isn’t cooperating with him, which isn’t unusual considering how highly strung he’s been since he came back home from that surreal night in Beacon Hills; he, Lydia, and Kira had stayed up, bracing themselves for a Google alert set to sound at Derek’s name. A week later and-- nothing.

But the stress has taken its toll, and that’s never been more evident than it is now, while he’s sprawled out on his bed, on his back, his knees bent and legs spread in a lazy sprawl, one hand rolling his balls over his fingers-- just enough to keep him hard, not enough to make him impatient and rush this-- and his other fingers dragging down and back, where he’s wound up tightest.

The phone being off helps immensely; he’s able to find that quiet place in his mind again where all he can draw in deep breaths sharply through his nose and slowly release them. With every breath he takes, he tries to visualize his body melting a little further into the bed, his muscles uncoiling easy as the pressure sloughs away, leaving him pliant-- if a little eager.

And he _is_ eager, he realizes with a little surprise. It’s been a while since he’s had the time and the inclination to be so deliberate in getting himself off, and now that he’s faced with an afternoon to himself, just a week after seeing Stiles in person for the first time in _months_ , he wants to luxuriate in the moment. 

Stiles is pretty as any girl Derek’s been with even in ill-fitting khakis, with his hair shorn, and dark, tired bags under his eyes. He’s got big, expressive hands, a trim waist, and the sort of lips Derek would have to be _blind_ not to fantasize about, and he’s _Derek’s_. The combination is heady and has been scratching under Derek’s skin for days on end. Now he has the time to take care of it-- thoroughly.

So he takes it slow when he starts getting into it: his fingers drag slowly across his hole without any real intent yet, just testing the tight furl of his hole, getting himself wet as his other hand alternates between petting the line between his thigh and his groin and cupping his balls, his hips rolling like a well-oiled machine, like he’s got something tight to fuck into. It’s good to remind himself of all the places he likes to be touched now, after getting by mostly with quick, furtive jerks on his dick in the shower in the morning and sometimes before falling asleep at night.

Stiles had put him on his back so easily, on the roof-- arms wrapped around him, knees firm between Derek’s, expression playful and hungry all at once. He hadn’t touched Derek anywhere below the waist that night, but in Derek’s mind now, the memory ripples and distorts, becoming something new:

Stiles, his hands pressed to the shingles on either side of Derek, moving forward with his entire body in a controlled, full-body roll forward to get at Derek’s mouth, his breaths sharp, sounding sometimes like curse words, pleas, and praise in equal turn. Stiles, catching Derek’s lower lip in his teeth and drawing away, teasing it, before saying, “Mmm, want to see you, c’mon,” and shifting his weight to put one of his big hands against the fly of Derek’s jorts to get his meaning across.

In his fantasy, Derek wouldn’t be smooth about it-- he’d scramble, blind, for the button and zipper while arching his head back, wild for it, rocking his hips up in a bossy demand for attention exactly where he wants it--

Kind of like he is now, against the charcoal bedspread in his room back in Los Angeles, where he’s _aching_ for Stiles’s touch, the rhythm of his hips stuttering, his fingers against his hole pressing and rubbing in firm, tight little circles while pressing in, slow, slow, slow and lighting him up inside with just the tips-- all that he can get in so far. He’s gritting his teeth and practically whining, starting to sweat under his tank top.

He wants to rip it off, tease his nipples a little bit-- something that usually doesn’t really do it for him, but damn, he’s just _feeling_ it right now-- but that would mean taking one of his other hands away, and he’s so close to getting it where he _needs_ it. It feels so good to arch for it, needy, and fist a hand in the thick comforter under him as he tries to get deeper inside himself with his fingers. He has to dig his heels into the bed, and his thighs tremble when he arches his hips and puts his weight on his shoulders, trying to keep his legs spread. 

His body opens for him slowly, conceding in small increments to what he wants. And what he wants is this: slick fingers pressing up into him where he’s so soft and so, so hot.

Would Stiles watch if Derek did this in front of him? Would he sit back on his haunches, lick his lips, and keep his hands on his knees-- fingers clutching-- to keep himself from touching? Or would he duck down, get Derek’s legs over his shoulders, and slide his fingers up and back to feel Derek’s ass for himself?

And, “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he gasps as his body loosens enough that he can work a single finger inside himself all the way to the knuckle. The sting is the sweetest fucking thing; he’s already greedy for more and dragging it out just to push it back in. His whole body is shaking, and he tries to bend his knees further, get his feet planted higher up on the bed for better purchase, but he keeps slipping just before he can get the angle how he wants it-- just when he feels himself getting _close_.

He needs Stiles to spread him open and _keep him there_ , where even Derek’s body-- for all its strength and flexibility-- can’t make it happen. He needs Stiles’s smirk against his inner thigh, his teeth dragging against the tender skin there. He nearly cries thinking about Stiles hot, plush lips against his asshole, his tongue licking in, deep, getting Derek wet for him--

Two fingers, and he’s whining nonstop between grit teeth, his memories a blur of Stiles’s skin, his mouth, the smell of his breath and his hair and the hint of stubble across his chin, and shit, shit, shit.

He collapses on his side and tries to curl his fingers inside of himself, but it’s not right, not enough (it never has been when it’s just him, all by himself, with just his hands). The tight, slick glide of them makes him so hot, makes him want to show Stiles, urge his long fingers in beside his own, ask him if he likes it, if he’s ever fucked anyone so tight, if he’s ever been with someone who wanted him _this_ much.

When he gets his other hand around his dick, he’s not gentle. His pace is rough and punishing, his hand too dry, and he’s racing towards the finish line, curling in on himself, fucking himself in the ass with two fingers. He squeezes his eyes shut as he fantasizes about Stiles on the roof that night, only this time he’s biting at Derek’s nipples through his dumb tank top, knowing where to give it just how Derek needs it, even if it’s in ways Derek never knew he wanted, never knew he liked--

“Oh, fuck, please,” he’s groaning, his whole body locking up and convulsing in waves as he feels his balls get tight, his palm get sticky-slick with his precum as he all but spanks his cock, wanting, wanting, wanting--

“Shit, _Stiles_ , fucking _Christ_ ,” he shouts, voice going high as he comes against his palm, feels his ass shudder around his fingers. 

Reality comes in like a wave, and he slips his fingers out of himself, takes his hand off of his dick, and rolls onto his back, gasping for breath. Now he pulls the tank top over his head and uses it to clean his hands and his junk and his asscrack-- everywhere that feels tacky in the wake of his arousal.

He lays there for a long, long time, staring at nothing in particular and trying to ignore the post-orgasm drop that comes on fast and strong the way it always does when he gets himself off hard and has no one nearby to press his face against and _hold_.

***

Cora is already waiting for him at his favorite booth when Derek gets to the diner. She’s got a banana split in front of her, which he envies viciously, but she’s already ordered him a bowl of fruit salad and it’s there for him when he takes a seat. 

“You didn’t have to--” he starts.

“Don’t sweat it. I told them that you got the bill,” she says, and he rolls his eyes even as he feels himself smiling.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asks her, and she shoves a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth as soon as the words are out. Like she wasn’t the one who called him while his phone was off and left him three, four, five messages in the span of half an hour.

He waits for her to chew and swallow, as patient as he knows how to be with Cora, and then she says, “Erica said she got to meet your soulmate.”

He nods. “She met Stiles. They didn’t say much to each other, though. It was pretty late.”

“Did you deliberately not tell me that you were going to see him?” she asks then, no longer skirting the issue she really wants to talk about. She looks angry and hurt, her chin raised and her challenging glare hot.

“No, I didn’t,” he sighs. “I didn’t even know I was going until Lydia woke me up before sunrise and dragged me downstairs. Erica was already in the car.”

That doesn’t do much to placate her. “Did Lydia tell Erica not to tell me?” she demands.

“How should I know?” he snaps back. “Look, Cora, I know you don’t like the idea of me being with Stiles--”

“Understatement,” she mutters darkly.

“-- but you haven’t even met him. You don’t know what you’re talking about with him. Or with me.”

Her eyes narrow even further, and she shoves her banana split aside as she spits, “You think you’re too good to be tricked, don’t you? Jesus, it’s like you don’t even _remember_ what happened to Laura!” He stiffens immediately, feeling anger coming on fast and strong, when Cora takes it a step further, says, “Or maybe you just don’t care anymore.”

Before he’s even aware he’s doing it, he’s stood up, thrown a twenty dollar bill on the table, and is marching out of the diner-- so furious at the accusation that he doesn’t know what to say to his sister.

She catches up to him on the streets, just before the crosswalk where Derek and Stiles first touched. She fists her hand in his jacket and drags him around to face her, but he shrugs her off hard. “ _No_ , Cora,” he hisses. “I’m not talking to you right now.”

“You _never_ talk to me!” she shouts as he walks away, then she’s hot on his heels in pursuit. “I never know _what’s_ going on with you. I always hear it from Kira or Erica or-- God forbid, _Lydia_. You’ve completely iced me out, and now you just want me to trust that this guy you met isn’t going to hurt you? No fucking way.”

He rounds on her, so, so angry.

“You have no clue what it’s like!” he shouts. Then, shaking with rage, he sneers, “You went-- what? Two years with premonitions? Less? Then you got to meet Boyd, and you knew _immediately_ that he was yours even before you both got _another_ soulmate. You had both of yours by your side before I ever met my _one_ , and you were off getting your life together, settling down, and all I _had_ was Kira and Lydia.”

It’s the most honest thing he’s ever said about the years he’s dreamed of Stiles, longed for the idea of him-- and he’s not done. 

“I started getting mood swings when I was _twelve_ \-- years before Laura and Dad died. When I was fourteen, I cried for three days and wouldn’t eat for two after that, and no one-- not even me-- knew why. I’m not letting you tell me that I’m wrong about this because I’m _not_. I _know_ him-- I’ve known him this whole time. I’ve just been waiting to meet him for half my life.”

Cora’s gaping at him now, dumbfounded. “I never-- you never--”

“And Laura _never_ felt right about Brunski,” he continues. “She told me how lucky I was to be so close to my soulmate already, to _get_ him like that. She hated Brunski but she wouldn’t admit it because she thought--”

He cuts himself off and shakes Cora off again. “Go home, Cora. I’m not talking about this with you now.”

“You’re _never_ going to talk to me about it, are you?” she asks, but he’s already gone, drawn into the crowd of pedestrians crossing the street, the sea of people dragging him away from his little sister and her shell-shocked expression.

*

**So you’re going to be in Hawaii for your birthday?**

**Yeah. We’re boarding in fifteen minutes.**

**We**  
 **?**

**I’m going with my mom and my little sister and my little sister’s soulmates.**

**OH that reminds me**  
 **Was that chick Erica one of her soulmates?**  
 **I feel like I remember an Erica being mentioned**

**Yeah. Cora has Erica and Boyd.**  
 **They’re a platonic triad.**

**Well that sounds like**  
 **A handful**  
 **We’ve had a tricky enough time with just the two of us**  
 **But that’s still cool**  
 **[...]**  
 **WAIT did you say you’re leaving in FIFTEEN MINUTES???**

**Yeah.**

**UGH**

**Eight minutes now. I’ll have to turn my phone off soon.**

**Come ON hale**  
 **be a rebel**  
 **Act like your phone is in airplane mode and then aggressively text me anyway**

**No.**

**Well OKAY then just SMASH my dreams**  
 **No big deal**

**There wouldn’t be service anyway.**

**Well not with that attitude there won’t be**

**Plane’s boarding. Talk to you later, Stiles.**

**UGH you don’t even have to turn off your phone until the plane is moving!!!**  
 **Do you hate fun Derek?**  
 **Because I’m starting to think you hate fun**  
 **Or just texting me**

**Texting you is FINE.**

**It’s “fine”???**  
 **What the fuck does THAT mean**  
 **Your FACE is fine**

**Thanks.**

**GO FLY TO MAUI I CAN’T LOOK AT YOU ANYMORE**

*

He and Cora still aren’t on speaking terms when they settle into their seats on the plane. She’s a few seats ahead of him, sitting next to their mother, while Derek and Boyd have a row to share, and Erica has settled in by herself with her audio books just a few rows behind them.

Derek’s never been a very good flier, but he’s especially bad when he’s stuck in a plane going over nothing but ocean for hours on end. He’d watched _Castaway_ a few too many times as a kid, and the thought of being a lone survivor so isolated his only friend would be a soccer ball with a face drawn on it had fundamentally traumatized him.

“I know she pissed you off,” Boyd says quietly about an hour and a half into their trip, “and you’ve probably gotta right to be mad. But she’s just worried about you.”

Derek casts a sidelong look his way. It’s exceedingly rare that Boyd willingly puts himself in the middle of the _big_ fights between Derek and Cora. As Boyd’s closest friend and one of his soulmates, respectively, he’s always been alright with playing tiebreaker for little things-- like choosing what they should eat for dinner, whose car they should take, and where they should meet up for group outings-- but the big stuff has always put him between a rock and a hard place.

“Just do me a favor and talk to her. She loves you a lot, even if she’s not nice about it,” Boyd says as he puts his ear buds back in. He’s using them to listen to Sky Mall’s ads on the TV screen implanted in the seat in front of him, but that’s typical-- Boyd has an endless fascination with infomercials and advertisements of all kinds.

The truth of the matter, though, is that Derek has already (mostly) forgiven Cora. It rankles every time he remembers that she accused him of not caring about what happened to Laura, yeah, and while that’s not the sort of thing he’s going to forget easily, he understands where it came from.

Cora had been eleven years old when Brunski came into Laura’s life. She-- like Derek-- had been resigned to his role in their family and their life even if she’d never really bonded with him. Finding out the extent of the farce he had created from the fake soulmark to the surveillance he had put inside of Laura’s dorm to the heavy policing of her friends-- all to do his best to prevent Laura from bumping into her _real_ soulmate, of course-- had changed Cora irrevocably. After the original restraining order had been filed, she’d already taken a turn towards being suspicious, closed off, and violent; the night he sabotaged their father’s sports car only made her worse.

And for all that Derek had shouted about her having two soulmates before his one-- well, Cora needed them a little bit more than he did, at the time. She’d been on a fast track to being kicked out of her college as an undergraduate for behavior citations even though her grades had been impeccable-- smoking in buildings, threatening other students, damaging property-- and Boyd had helped her channel her frustration better than any therapy ever had.

Forgiving her in his mind and starting a conversation with her about how he’s forgiven her, however, are two very different things. If he’s too patronizing she won’t thank him for it, but if he’s too standoffish she’ll think he’s lying. It’s something to think about though-- something to keep his mind off the endless blue stretching out thousands of feet below them.

***

Christmas Eve brings with it the first real cold snap of the season, and a few hours after the sun goes down, the world outside Stiles’s window is dark, and the fire escape is sporting a dusting of frost over its red grating. The central heating of his building is busted in the sense that his apartment feels like a _sauna_ , and by ten-thirty he’s stripped out of all of his clothes except for his boxers and is laying on top of his covers, staring at the ceilings.

By eleven-thirty he’s cracked the fire escape window, and when twelve-thirty in the morning comes around, he’s stripped the blankets off his mattress entirely and is trying desperately to find a slightly-less-awful spot on his bed to sweat out his nerves.

Finally, at quarter-til one, he stumbles to his feet and goes into an anxiety-ridden pace, his bare feet smacking against the floor with wet sounds because, Jesus, even the soles of his feet are sweating. The apartment has largely cooled off, too, which means he’s sweating out of nervousness-- _ugh_.

In an hour and fifteen minutes, it will officially be Derek’s birthday in Maui, and Stiles will call him to congratulate him (because they _do that_ now, holy crap) and then--

He has no idea how he’s going to give Derek his gift without coming off like a total douche, but he decided hours ago to just “do what feels natural,” which was a great plan for not worrying about it _now_ , but he knows it’s going to bite him in the ass as soon as he gets Derek on the other line. 

The time between twelve-fifty and twelve-fifty-five feels like three hours on its own; the wood under his feet starts to protest like he’s going to run a hole through it with the force of his steps, and a breeze is picking up outside that’s actually making his apartment feel _cold_.

He has to gather his wits, take a deep breath, and sit gingerly on the edge of his bed to stop freaking out. His phone is off, on the other side of the room for now so he can’t get caught up in that Cornell study again. Everything it has to say that he can understand, he’s practically memorized. Looking at it again is only going to make him more anxious, not less, so it’s important that he stay on the other side of the apartment from his phone for another hour.

Just one hour.

He falls back on his bed to look at the ceiling again, his bare chest flushed with nerves (or is it excitement?) and the earlier heat. Rubbing at his sternum is practically second nature; his anxiety has always manifested through physical ticks like that.

Just an hour, he thinks again.

So he closes his eyes and lets his mind wander--

And, when he jerks awake, the clock on the wall says 11:59, and he has to scramble across the room to collect his phone and smash his finger on Derek’s name, hit call, wait, wait, wait--

“... Stiles?” Derek asks, sounding a little sleepy, wary.

“Heyyy,” Stiles says, aiming for cool but definitely missing by a mile. “Happy birthday-- it’s your birthday there now, right?”

Derek’s says, “Uh--” and pauses like he’s checking, then says, “it will be in about five seconds?”

“Okay, so, hold that thought,” Stiles says, and they’re silent for a few seconds. Then, after counting to ten in his head for good measure, he says, “ _Now_. Happy birthday, Derek.”

“Thanks, Stiles.” He sounds like he’s smiling, maybe keeping a laugh at bay. Good.

“How’s Maui?” 

“I’ll be waking up in February and finding sand in my bed back in Los Angeles,” Derek groans. “But my mom loves it.”

“Well, that’s good at least. Did I mention happy freaking _birthday_ dude? You’re thirty! You’re basically a dinosaur now, sorry.”

This time, Derek does snort. “It’s also Christmas, you know.”

Stiles frowns like Derek can see him, but Derek doesn’t have to know that. “I’ve celebrated like a million Christmases before--”

“Probably only twenty-four, but okay.”

“-- this is the first time I’m celebrating _your_ birthday. So that takes precedence.”

“Celebrating? Is that what we’re doing?” Derek’s tone is teasing.

Stiles makes an indignant noise, even though he’s definitely smiling now like a total dweeb. “You should be celebrating _every_ time I call. I don’t want to catch you slacking, Hale.”

“Uh huh. Well, if we’re celebrating, where’s my present?”

“You say that because you think it’s funny,” Stiles huffs. “But joke’s on you because I totally have a present for you.”

Derek’s quiet for a minute. “You got me a present?” he asks, his tone unreadable down the line.

“That’s not what I said,” Stiles says. “I _have_ a present for you.”

“Do I get to know what it is?”

“If you’re very, very nice-- maybe.”

“What if I’m very, very tired?”

Stiles laughs. Derek’s early bedtime is so characteristic that he can’t help but laugh in the face of it. It’s so predictable, in fact, that Stiles had based most of his plan for tonight on that fact alone. So now-- now would be the right time to offer his present.

“That actually kind of works out for me, believe it or not,” he says.

“What?” Derek sounds completely baffled. Good-- it hadn’t been easy deciding what to get his celebrity-soulmate-pseudo-lover for his Christmas/birthday combo day. 

“I’m going to need you to fall asleep so I can give you your gift,” he says as plainly as he can without giving it away. “So get comfortable, and listen to me talk about something until you slip into snoozeville. I recommend listening to me talk about Malia’s wedding plans or my job for the best results in passing _right_ the fuck out.”

For a few long seconds, Derek doesn’t say anything at all. Then, warily, he asks, “Stiles, are you high?”

“Oh my God!” Stiles says with feeling. “No, I’m not _high_. I’m trying to be _spontaneous_ and surprise you, you giant douchebag!”

“How are you going to give me a gift if I’m asleep?” Derek asks like it’s extremely tedious having to point out the flaw in Stiles’s logic, which is just unnecessary. There’s _not_ a flaw in Stiles’s logic, okay?

Which is why he says, “Because we’re _dream sharing_ , dumbass!”

And Derek goes absolutely silent. Not even the sound of his breaths are coming down the line. After a couple of minutes, Stiles starts to get worried.

“Derek…?” he asks. “Did I break you?”

“We’re--” Derek pauses to take a breath, “-- you think we’re sharing dreams.”

“I’m pretty freaking certain we’re sharing dreams,” Stiles corrects. “I would have figured it out earlier, but you didn’t even tell me you had dreams.” He has to consider that for a second, then, in a rush, he says, “Wait-- you _are_ having dreams, right?”

“Yeah.” The way Derek says it makes him sound like he’s only half-there, like he’s gone some place in his mind to make sense of what Stiles is telling him.

Stiles breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank God. If you hadn’t been dreaming, that would have totally blown my whole theory out of the water and you wouldn’t be getting a present at all.”

Derek asks, “So-- you’ve dreamed? Of me?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, voice softening at the shyness in Derek’s tone. “Since I was sixteen, dude.”

“Um-- are they-- I don’t--” 

“Mine are pretty fucking raunchy,” Stiles tells him, making an educated guess at what Derek’s trying to ask.

There’s a click down the line like Derek’s just snapped his mouth shut. “Oh,” he says, winded. Then, after a beat, he asks, “Wait-- is my birthday gift _dream sex_?”

“Birthday _and_ Christmas gift,” Stiles confirms, starting to grin. “You’re not going to get weird about it now are you?”

“No,” Derek says, “one of us has to act like a normal person here.”

“I don’t know if I like normal people, actually,” Stiles says. “Do normal people dream bone? Because dream boning is definitely my top priority here.”

“ _Please_ don’t say ‘dream bone’ ever again.”

“Did you get _me_ a Christmas present?” Stiles asks, changing tactics.

Derek’s suspiciously quiet down the line.

“Uh huh,” Stiles says, smug. “So, fall asleep with me and let me get my dream bone on. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a _hella_ good night.”

“Jesus,” Derek’s muttering, his voice muffled like he’s burying his face in something. His hand, maybe. “What if I don’t want to dream bone?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to dream bone?” Stiles demands. “I am very dream boneable, okay.”

“I could have a dream headache.”

Stiles groans, “Our first Christmas together and we’re already a cliché. Look at us. We’ll have our own prime time sitcom by 2016 at this rate.”

“I have connections,” Derek says seriously, “we could definitely have it airing by fall of 2015.”

“You’re a man after my own dream heart,” Stiles sighs dramatically. 

Derek barks a laugh. “You’re only saying that because you’re a man after _my_ dream dick.”

“I’m a guy who knows what he wants, what can I say?”

There’s a beat of awkward silence, then, and it stretches on and on until Stiles starts to second guess himself, until he starts to say,

“We don’t _have_ to dream bone, you know, I just--”

“I still have to brush my teeth,” Derek says, interrupting him. “And I need to put a do not disturb sign outside my door. And get changed. I probably won’t be asleep for another fifteen minutes at least.”

Stiles holds his breath and _hopes_.

“But it’s-- what-- almost two-thirty there?”

“Yeah,” he admits.

“Go to sleep, Stiles,” Derek tells him. Then, quietly, he says, “I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Happy birthday, Derek,” Stiles says.

“Merry Christmas, Stiles,” Derek says back.

*

The dream is so crisp and clear that it might as well not be a dream at all. He laughs when he sees where he is-- his room back at his dad’s place. He’s aware that it’s dark, though he doesn’t really use his senses in this place. He’s standing at the foot of his bed, waiting for something, not sure what it is until he feels two arms coil around him, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank God,” he says, letting his head fall back against Derek’s shoulder. “I would feel like total shit if my gift was a bust.”

Derek shakes with quiet laughter, and he buries his face in the space between Stiles’s neck and shoulder. It makes Stiles shiver even though he can’t really feel it; his brain is telling him that it’s good, that it has to be so good that he’d shiver.

“Are you freaking out?” he asks.

Derek pulls back, and Stiles turns to face him. Derek’s expression is amused, his eyebrows raised. “That we’ve been sharing dreams for a while without knowing it? I was earlier.”

Stiles swallows, can hear the catch of his dry throat when he does so.

“That we’re sharing one now?” Derek asks. Then he shrugs.

It makes Stiles shy, suddenly, and he ducks his head to try and hide it, but Derek catches him by the chin, tilts his head back up and kisses him soundly. It’s nothing Stiles hasn’t dreamed about a dozen times, but knowing that Derek’s doing it and is _choosing_ to do it and is now an _active participant_? 

“Oh, Jesus,” Stiles breathes when Derek pulls away, and Derek makes a quiet noise. Stiles opens his eyes to scowl at him. “Don’t _laugh at me_ , asshole.”

“You’re freaking out,” Derek tells him.

“I’m not freaking out,” Stiles mutters. “ _You’re_ freaking out.”

Derek crosses his arms and looks at him, unimpressed. 

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles snaps, and Derek shakes his head, laughs, and his gaze catches and lingers on Stiles’s bed-- his kid bed, where he spent so many nights towards the end of his high school career jerkin’ it to thoughts of Derek, to magazines with his face, to _Diamond Interchange_ sex scenes. The bed where he’d started having his dreams of Derek-- the ones they didn’t share.

Having Derek looking at his bed now-- in this dream that they are sharing-- is possibly the most erotic thing that’s _ever_ happened to Stiles, holy tap-dancing Christ. Something hot is flashing inside of him, the thought clearly turning him on even on this subconscious level. 

Derek gives him a look, then, and takes a long minute to study Stiles’s face. Something must come together for him, then, because he nods at Stiles’s bed and asks, “Did you dream about me here?”

Stiles’s breath catches. 

He must hesitate too long because Derek advances on him slowly, his expression turning into something predatorily focused. Stiles shivers all over again.

“You did, didn’t you?” Derek’s asking, and he’s close enough to touch, but he doesn’t reach for Stiles, and Stiles doesn’t reach for him, either.

“I did,” Stiles admits. “I told you, dude. Since I was sixteen.”

Derek comes closer, his chest brushing against Stiles’s, and he turns his head to press his mouth to Stiles’s ear. He’s smiling; Stiles can feel the roundness of his cheek and just knows he is. “Did you wake up wet for me?”

Stiles _chokes_. He has to put a hand on Derek’s shoulder and fist it up in his shirt to keep from falling over, the flash of arousal is so powerful.

Derek’s breath is still hot against his ear when he demands, “Did you?”

“I did, shit, I _did_ ,” Stiles admits, his voice rough.

Derek makes a rough noise of his own, and he curls a hand around the back of Stiles’s neck to pull him close, to touch their foreheads together and say, with a smirk, “Tell me about them.”

“I don’t remember,” Stiles lies.

Of course he remembers-- Derek hadn’t been slim like he is now back when Stiles had first become aware of him. He’d been built like an underwear model and a body builder’s beautiful bastard child-- his shoulders huge and his hips slim and his thighs practically busting out of his jeans. It had been a time in Stiles’s life where things had gotten a little more complicated in the most exciting of ways, when his porn preferences had branched out to include dudes for the first time, when he started looking specifically for bigger dudes trembling at the touch of lanky guys who talked a _lot_ while fucking.

“I don’t believe you,” Derek says, pressing the words into the corner of Stiles’s mouth, and Stiles tightens his grip on his shoulder and swears like a sailor when Derek presses the heel of his other hand against Stiles’s crotch where he’s rocking a half-chub like it’s going out of style. “I’ll ask again: what did you dream about, Stiles?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Stiles gasps, tears springing to his eyes as Derek’s heel catches him _just right_ and he practically sees stars; so much for not feeling much in these dreams. 

Derek is on him fully, then, his mouth hot and demanding as he paws at Stiles’s clothes, urging them off one layer right after another. He gets Stiles down to nothing but his jeans, slung low on his hips, before he pulls back and rips his own henley off his body, his muscles bunching and releasing as he drops it at their feet.

Stiles drags him in for another kiss, then, and walks them clumsily to the bed, toppling Derek over the edge of it onto his back where he sprawls, still in his jeans.

“What do you want?” Stiles asks, unbuttoning his pants with one hand. Derek half-shrugs, his eyes focused hungrily on Stiles’s chest. “It’s your birthday, right? So tell me what you want, dumbass.”

“More sweet talk like that,” Derek huffs. “Keep that coming all night.”

“Well, I definitely plan to keep _some_ thing coming all night,” Stiles says, and he deliberately drags his eyes down Derek’s body, where he’s leaner and softer than he ever was in Stiles’s teenage dreams and all the sexier for it.

Derek sits up sharply and catches him, surprised, by his belt loops of his undone pants, and he drags Stiles in for a messy kiss, lets Stiles fist his fingers into his inky-black hair and just opens up for it, eyes closed, mouth open, body so responsive even in the haze of their subconscious.

He pulls back and says, “Take off your pants,” against Stiles’s mouth before falling back on the bed. Stiles rushes to do what he says and nearly falls on his ass in his haste. When he rights himself and stands up, completely naked and nervous as _shit_ , Derek’s got a hand working the line of his own erection through his jeans, and he’s canting up into the grip, making wounded noises as he looks at Stiles’s body like he doesn’t know where to begin.

He may be content to just look, but Stiles sure as hell isn’t. He can’t get his hands on Derek fast enough, can’t get his fingers hooked into the button-fly of his jeans as quickly as he’d like to. But once he strips Derek of those, he leaves him in his heather gray briefs and marvels at the wet spot he’s making in them.

It takes him all of two seconds to decide he has to put his mouth on that, and he hunches down to put his lips over the head of Derek’s dick through the soft fabric and suckle. Derek _shouts_ and his fingers scrabble at Stiles’s head for purchase, but with Stiles’s hair so short his ends up scratching over his scalp over and over, desperate.

It makes Stiles smirk. When he pulls back, the wet spot on Derek’s boxer briefs is practically comical.

“Stiles,” Derek breathes, and when Stiles looks up his chest is heaving and splotchy red; he has an arm thrown over his eyes. It’s surreal-- this is far and away the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen, and he’s not even really _seeing_ it.

“I can’t wait to be able to taste you,” Stiles whispers, licking at Derek’s dick again through the sodden fabric. He’s never had a real dick in his mouth, but he _knows_ he’d like Derek’s. Knows it completely, intrinsically. 

Derek groans and fucks up into Stiles’s mouth, desperate for more. “Please,” he’s grunting. “It’s my _birthday_.”

“Spoiled,” Stiles huffs. “When was the last time anyone said no to you, huh? Mr. _Men’s Fitness_ over here, thinks he can tell _me_ what to do…” 

But he peels Derek’s boxer briefs off him anyway, and Derek’s dick is just as beautiful as it always has been in these dreams, but now Stiles is looking at it knowing that Derek _knows_ he’s looking at it-- _his_ Derek, not dream-Derek or text-Derek. This is them, together, in this warm and fuzzy place their subconscious has carved out for them.

Derek’s dick is fat and heavy against his belly; he’s uncircumcised which is intimidating, but Stiles’s curiosity definitely overpowers any hesitancy he feels about it as he ducks down to get that thick head in his mouth, to feel it against his tongue. 

And Derek’s _whining_ now so Stiles has to use a hand to keep Derek’s knee from snapping into his temple and braining him. He puts a little bit of pressure on it to ease it down onto the bed, then slides his hand up to hold Derek’s hip, his grip tight.

There’s no finesse to his technique because he’s never had a chance to develop a technique, but his own preference is for sloppy, enthusiastic participation, so he curls his other hand around the base of Derek’s dick and squeezes gently, working the skin he can’t get all the way into his mouth. Derek is grabbing at the sheets under them, sweating and swearing and urging Stiles on every once in a while by petting the back of his head, gentle, like he’s thinking about getting forceful but never quite goes that far.

Stiles feels-- he feels _hungry_. He wants to taste Derek everywhere, even if he can’t taste anything at all; he wants to put his mouth there, wants to leave a map of his touches here and now so when he’s awake and able to do this again, he can follow it, find all the places that make Derek squirm, find the places that make him writhe, find the spots that will ultimately make him _come_ if he gives them enough attention.

He pulls his mouth off Derek with a slick, wet sound, and Derek hisses, unhappy, and scrabbles and pumps his hips to get Stiles back where he wants him most, but Stiles ducks his head and puts his mouth on Derek’s balls, which makes Derek go into a high, tight arch and snap his head back, groaning, “Oh, fuck, oh fuck, please, shit.”

Stiles still has a hand at the base of Derek’s dick, and he works it up and down the length, catching his palm over the head of it to capture and spread Derek’s precum, to make him slick with it as Stiles sucks sweetly at the loose skin around his balls, which have drawn up tight yet feel so soft against his tongue when he drags it over them. One of Derek’s hands comes down hard on the bed beside them, his fingers curled to make a fist. 

If this were reality, Stiles would have come about a hundred years ago; the way Derek’s goading him on without even realizing, the way his body’s responding to Stiles’s every touch, the way Derek fucking _looks_ \-- any one of those things by itself would have Stiles busting a nut in record time, but combined? He wouldn’t stand a fucking chance.

But in this dreamstate, he’s able to ignore himself almost completely and focus on Derek, and _that_ makes him feel powerful. There’s something really fucking invigorating about getting his teeth so close to a dude’s junk, and the way Derek full-body shudders when Stiles turns his head and nips at the delicate skin of Derek’s inner thigh is fucking addictive. 

He keeps his slickened hand working Derek with a grip that’s just a little too loose to be _enough_ while he drops worshipful kisses to Derek’s balls, curls his tongue around them, tries to imagine what the sensation would be like in the real world, where Derek’s pubic hair would be coarse to the touch, and he’d probably smell like a guy down here-- musky, a little sweaty-- and fuck if that’s not a sexy thought. 

The hand he has holding Derek’s thigh down curls, then, around the outside of his leg and then under, and he slides it up slow, slow, slow, wondering how far he can get before--

Derek gets it, of course he does, and without a word he lifts his leg out of Stiles’s hold and bends it to his chest, exposing the curve of his ass and the line of his asscrack which is dark with hair and so fucking tempting, _fuck_.

Stiles takes his hand off of Derek’s dick entirely and pushes his other leg up to his chest, smirking when Derek curses colorfully before curling his own hands underneath his knees to hold himself open for Stiles, to keep himself pinned, in a sense, waiting for Stiles to do as he pleases.

In reality, Stiles’s hands would probably be trembling, but the dream has made him brave and he spreads Derek further with his hands, running his thumbs across the center of him, cupping the cheeks of his ass apart to expose his little hole where the skin is so pink right in the center but all around it is smooth and pale, perfect, just fucking perfect.

“I want to--” Stiles says, and he shifts his weight on his knees so his feet don’t fall asleep as he decides what he’s going to do. 

But Derek doesn’t give him the chance to do that. Instead, he hisses, “If you don’t eat me out Stiles I swear to God--”

Stiles doesn’t need to be told twice; that was exactly what he wanted to do anyway. He tips his head forward and licks at that furled muscle tentatively-- a little kitten lick right across the surface of it-- and Derek sinks further into the mattress with a groan. It’s all the encouragement Stiles needs to push his face forward and lick again, this time more forcefully, using the broad flat of his tongue to make Derek wet here, too.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Derek coughs, surprise choking him up as he goes up on his shoulders, body arching _off the bed_ until Stiles pulls him down again with hands tight on Derek’s hips and pushes him to the bed, his mouth still hovering over him, ready to make Derek _scream_.

He’s always been good with his mouth-- big surprise there-- but he wants to be extra-good here, where the physical sensations are dulled but the _thoughts_ they have while doing this drive their reactions and the way their dream-bodies respond to stimulation. So he cycles between sucking and licking at the tender skin of Derek’s little, clutching hole and drawing back to look at the mess he’s making and _talk_.

“Fucking look at you, Derek,” he whispers, pressing a thumb to Derek’s rim to feel the give of it where he’s now spongy and wet, receptive to Stiles’s gentle touch. At first it’s just the pad of his finger, but then he’s pressing further, further, until Derek’s _hngh_ -ing and fucking down on the base of Stiles’s thumb, bossy and beautiful as he tries to chase the pleasure of it. “You ever done this before?”

“Toys,” Derek chokes out. “I-- I’ve always liked--”

“Oh, fuck,” Stiles groans, sitting back on his haunches to _see_ Derek while swirling his thumb a little to feel every bit of the trembling, sucking heat around him even if the sensation of it is fuzzy and muted. “I bet you loved having your girlfriend strap one on and give it to you like this before, didn’t you?”

Derek nods forcefully; he still has an arm thrown over his eyes, and his chest and neck and face are bright red.

And Stiles can imagine it: Derek on his hands and knees, bracing himself against a wall as a woman presses her breasts to his back and a huge plastic dick inside of him, right up to the hilt. 

“Wish I could have _seen_ ,” he hisses now, pulling his thumb out. Derek whines for a second, unhappy, but Stiles comes back with two fingers-- not pressing in this time, but rubbing at Derek’s hole in tight little circles. “Look at you, you’re so fucking _pretty_ , who wouldn’t want to fuck you?”

Derek’s trembling so hard, now, that he drops one of his legs entirely, and his freed hand goes to his dick, curling around it tightly-- tighter than Stiles himself likes-- and he pulls at it frantically, pacing. 

And Stiles falls forward, then, catching his weight on one elbow and effectively bringing his face closer to Derek’s, his sweat-slicked fingers drawing away from Derek’s ass. Derek’s saying, “No, no, please get back--” but Stiles kisses him forcefully, and whispers, “Shhh, I got you. Trust me,” against his mouth.

He can feel Derek’s hand pumping furiously against his stomach, but it’s a hazy, distant thing as Stiles takes his dick in hand and teases the head of it across Derek’s asshole, making both of them go shock still, jaws hanging open and voices lost completely to the sensation. The physicality of it is lost, mostly, on Stiles-- but the _thought_ of sliding inside of Derek where he clearly needs it so bad is almost enough to make Stiles black out with arousal, with his orgasm being an afterthought to that.

Derek recovers first, and with a rough voice he demands, “Again-- Stiles, do that again--”

And Stiles can’t do anything but obey. He uses his hand to direct his dick over Derek’s hole again and again, getting it slick with his precum, catching the softened skin around it and making Derek cry out, his hand on his dick momentarily stilled as the sensation of Stiles teasing him takes precedence. 

Eventually the movement becomes something natural and thrilling-- Derek’s one leg still pressed up and out, Stiles half-collapsed on top of him, their hands between them on each of their dicks as Stiles works his hips and his dreamvision goes spotty and dark with every thrust as Derek grunts and curses and _begs_ for Stiles, “please, just-- give-- it-- to-- me,” through gritted teeth.

“Shh, just like this,” Stiles is saying against Derek’s chin, mouth open and his teeth grazing the stubbled skin there, wanting to bite down. “You feel so good, I want you to come just like this. Think you can do that?”

“Fuck you,” Derek snaps, writhing. “Fuck you and give it to me, I want it--”

“So freakin’ _spoiled_ ,” Stiles says again, and he kisses Derek quiet. Derek wraps his arms around him and runs his fingers over Stiles’s head, dragging his dull nails across it and then down Stiles’s neck and over his shoulders like he has a point to prove. But Stiles just keeps nailing him nice and easy, nothing more than the head of his dick slipping wetly over Derek’s asshole, pressing just enough to make sure he feels it.

Derek’s hand starts moving again against his dick after a little while, and his pace is punishing, but his heels are slipping against the sheets and his back is arching and his hips are working, and on a particularly enthusiastic thrust up into the tight grip of his hand, Derek comes down just as Stiles is pushing forward and it presses the head of Stiles’s dick _inside_ \-- just a little, just enough to give them both what they needed to fall over that edge, clinging to each other in sweaty tangle of limbs as they come.

*

After Christmas, the last week of 2014 sprints by in a blur of busy-as-hell workdays and not nearly enough sleep, but Stiles couldn’t feel better. He and Derek have been able to coordinate two more shared sleep times for dreams while also maintaining their texts and Skype routines; things have never been better between them, and in a few days Stiles will be moving up into training for his new position. 

He’d been worried, at first, when he’d made the decision to stay in Beacon Hills, accept the lateral promotion, and wait for things to calm down and stabilize between him and Derek before uprooting his life and moving away-- but this feels better. There’s still a part of him that’s mourning the decision like a loss, but he’s mostly pretty happy.

That’s why he goes into work the last day of the year whistling, with a spring in his step. Both of which die off immediately when he turns the corner to find Caitlin near his desk pacing, looking extremely concerned.

“Hey,” he says, making her jump, “whoa-- who died?” 

“Stiles,” she says, sounding pained. She’s fidgeting a little, pressing her hands to her skirtsuit and brushing off invisible lint. “Hey, no one’s dead. I just-- I wanted to tell you something, and I thought it’d be best if you heard it from me. First.”

Everything falls out from under him in that moment; he says, flat, “I can’t have the promotion, can I?”

She looks surprised for a second before shaking her head vigorously. “No-- shit, Stiles, the job is yours if you want it, I swear. I just… don’t know if you’re going to want it very much after all.”

“What could possibly make me not want it?” he laughs, the tension draining from him. It’s not like anything could be worse than working day in and day out with--

There’s a big hand on his shoulder, then, and when he jerks around, Garrett is smirking at him, and Violet is standing behind him, arms crossed, looking equally smug. 

“Looks like we’ll be together a while longer, huh, Stilinski?” Garrett’s saying, and Stiles-- can’t.

He turns and gapes at Caitlin, who looks _extremely_ guilty. But she’s technically their superior, so she says, “Stiles, Violet and Garrett applied and have been accepted into the two positions alongside the one you’re taking in the innovations department. You’ll be working side-by-side on fourth shift again, completely beholden only to each other to get projects finished and to maintain your workload efficiently.”

Which meant months and months on end of having Violet and Garrett breathing down his neck, complaining about his every contribution, thinking he didn’t earn his spot next to them-- _fuck_. And _fourth shift,_ too, meaning he’d still be opposite of Derek nearly every day and--

“Looking forward to working with you, ma’am,” Garrett says, reaching forward to take Caitlin’s hand.

She frowns and looks at Stiles in askance; when he shrugs, she takes Garrett’s hand and says, “Just Caitlin, please.”

Garrett smiles, and Violet says-- in that smooth, awful way she has, “I’m sure we’ll have lots of time to get to know each other, Caitlin.”

“She doesn’t work in innovation,” Stiles snaps, crossing his arms and glowering at nothing in particular. “She handles the information packets for potential customers.”

Garrett, saccharine as ever, says, “Oh?” 

Caitlin purses her lips. “That’s right. I direct tours of our facilities and give seminars to the clients who we think would benefit from having a contract with us.”

“So you travel a lot?” Violet asks.

“Sometimes,” Caitlin says blandly. 

“Vi and I love to travel,” Garrett boasts. “We picked up sailing while abroad a couple of years ago, back in high school. Do you like sailing?”

“Never tried it.” Caitlin’s obviously doing her best to maintain solidarity with Stiles, but as their supervisor she can't be anything less than polite to them, and _this_ is hell-- Stiles is sure of it. This is the conversation he’ll be forced to relive every day for eternity when he dies if he hasn’t been a good enough person or however that shit works.

He’s so furious he blacks out for a few seconds, and when he resurfaces Garrett is saying, “We’ll have to take you, then. Once the weather is a little warmer, you should come out and see-- you’ll love it.”

He’s smiling that smarmy fake-ass smile that Stiles _hates_ and it takes on a sharp, mocking twist when he turns it on Stiles. He’s already sucking up, already acting like Stiles isn’t _right there_ in the middle of having a conversation with his friend. Mocking Stiles out in the open, and Caitlin’s expression says she _knows_ what Garrett’s doing-- has heard Stiles’s stories about Garrett too often to fall for the generous rich boy act-- but as long as Garrett _appears_ to be a kind, likeable dude in front of her, she can’t say _shit_. 

She’ll never be able to do that, Stiles realizes. She’ll always have to give the appearance of not having favorites, and she’ll always listen to Garrett and Violet’s accusations even if she knows that the accusations are unfounded-- she’ll _have_ to listen, and she’ll have to investigate. Her friendship with Stiles won’t mean shit if Violet and Garrett team up and support each other’s stories. 

And so Stiles would suffer. He’d be here in Beacon Hills, where he’s been his whole life, suffering through a job that doesn’t stimulate him at all, working alongside absolute shitrags who don’t respect or give the slightest damn about him, and pushing through the days in the hope that he’d be able to find Derek in his sleep the next morning or in a Skype conversation sometime that week or that their texts would pick up pace so Stiles could somehow get _more_ of him.

When, really, he could just say ‘fuck it,’ pick up his shit, and go to LA to try and actually see him more than once every five months. Even once a month is better than that-- God, imagine if he could see Derek once a _week_. He’d be right there, available for Stiles to touch and have and _know_ , to tease the shit out of and to complain at, to fuck or fight or whichever they end up doing more often since one would probably lead to another knowing Stiles’s turn-ons. 

It’d be difficult as hell, sure, but he could be out there, giving it a shot, but instead he wants to stay _here_? With _this_ bullshit day in and day out instead of in Los-freaking-Angeles where his stupidly good-looking and surprisingly hilarious and accidentally charming soulmate lives? What the _fuck_ is he doing with his life?

It’s that thought more than anything that makes Stiles take a deep breath and say, “I quit.”

*

“You did _what_?” Scott is asking, clearly excited. He’s laughing, and Stiles can’t help but laugh with him.

“I quit!” Stiles says again-- his third time since Scott picked up the call.

“Hold on, hold on,” Scott says, “what happened? Why did you quit? You put up with so much--”

“Well, I met the other two people I’d be working with in innovations.”

“Yikes,” Scott says. “Worse than Violet and Garrett?”

Stiles throws his head back and laughs. “It actually _was_ Violet and Garrett. I guess they just got the news, so they were being slimy fucks to Caitlin right in front of me. I was just standing there, listening to his stupid fucking voice, and I realized-- nope. Can’t do it. So I quit.”

“Holy shit,” Scott breathes. He sounds impressed. “What are you going to do now?”

Stiles is standing in the middle of his studio apartment with a backpack and the one giant empty cardboard box he’d used to move his crap in back in April; he’s already got his Xbox and PS4 bubble wrapped and the games to go with them wedged in carefully around them, and he’s in the process of dumping his clothes into it.

“Yeah, about that,” he says, scrubbing his hand over his shorn head-- it’s getting longish, he’ll need another trim soon. “Can I get Allison’s number from you?”

Scott’s quiet down the line for a while. “You’re going to LA?” he asks finally, voice quiet.

Stiles is grinning, “I’m going to LA.”

And Scott is-- he’s whooping, has the phone held away from his face but is cheering for Stiles wherever he is. When he recovers, he says, “Hey-- do you need help packing? I can--”

“No,” Stiles says, “I’m probably going to be back soon. I have the lease until the end of March, I just emptied my savings account to pay it upfront.”

“Is there a rush to leave now?” Scott asks.

“Dude,” Stiles says with feeling, “it’s _New Year’s Eve_ , and I’ve got a big romantic gesture thing planned. This is like your bread and butter, shit.”

“You want to get to LA by midnight?” Scott sounds disapproving. “Dude, that’s a six and a half hour drive and you have-- literally exactly that much time if you left five minutes ago.”

“Ye of little faith,” Stiles chides. “Now-- Allison’s number?”

Scott rattles it off and then asks, “Do you even know how you’re going to get into Derek’s building?”

“And _that_ is why I also have Lydia’s number,” Stiles says, grinning as he shifts the phone to his shoulder and hefts the massive box up into his arms. “Come visit soon?”

“Duh,” Scott says softly, warmly. “Go get him, Stiles.”

***

Lydia lost Kira thirty minutes ago when she disappeared to find a bathroom, and Braeden (the one who hand invited them in the _first_ place) had met someone who claimed to be a family member of Araya Calavera and had set out on a quest to booze the poor kid up enough to try and find out about the upcoming Spring/Summer line. Lydia could respect the endeavor certainly, but that left her alone in the middle of the giant Whittemore mansion, in the throes of the second strangest party of 2014.

“You look lost,” a smooth voice says. She’s prepared for another rich pretty boy when she turns around-- they’re a dime a dozen in the circles she runs in-- but she’s _not_ prepared to see the master of the house, Jackson Whittemore himself.

He doesn’t know who she is, of course, but it’s Lydia’s job to know who _he_ is, not that she’s going to act like she does. “Not lost,” she says curtly. “Admiring the decor.”

She gestures with her champagne glass at the tinsel and beads hanging off the banister of the spiral staircase and from the chandelier overhead. The ends of the strung beads have ornaments that read 2015. 

“Something tells me you’re not admiring them,” he says with a snort. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt under a silver suit that must be custom-made because Lydia doesn’t recognize the design. 

“Something?” she asks, tilting her head, folding one of her arms across her chest to cup her opposite elbow.

“Well,” he’s moving closer to her, sauntering, his body language catlike, “you’re clearly a woman of taste.” Here he nods at her shoes, and Lydia smirks at him.

“In more than just decor and clothes,” she agrees with a significant look-over of his entire everything.

It’s common knowledge that Jackson Whittemore is fully bonded-- but his bond is platonic, and not a lot is known about his soulmate, Danny Mahealani. The business-minded one between the two of them is, according to the rumor mill, Mahealani, but Jackson is the heir and face of the Whittemore Empire now since the passing of his parents in a tragic car accident eight years ago. Sure, he has an entire board of advisors and decision-makers, but the fortune and the fame is Jackson’s to claim. And he certainly does claim it, even as his soulmate brushes it off.

The rumor mill also whispers about Jackson’s soulmate being involved with an unidentified stuntman, and there’s speculation about how Jackson may feel about that.

Here, he doesn’t look like he cares much at all for anything other than Lydia, and the feeling’s a heady one. Every step he takes forward, he takes slowly, like he’s testing Lydia to see what she does. She doesn’t step away. Sex is fine-- she likes it even when it’s not great and loves it when it is-- and if that’s all he wants from her then that’s fine too. Sex isn’t complicated; it’s not soft words exchanged in a dusty old attic and it’s not ‘I trust you.’ Sex is just sex, and Lydia doesn’t have to think too hard about that at all.

The rest of her life is a whole lot of thinking too hard, avoiding public relations disasters, and doing her best to keep everything from falling apart around her-- doesn’t she deserve something nice and easy?

There’s a jaunty Taylor Swift tune playing in the main room, and Jackson’s looking at her like he wants to _eat_ her, and it’s making her practically _vibrate_ with how much she wants it--

No. She’s not vibrating with lust; her phone is just vibrating. 

“What now,” she snaps, ripping into her clutch. Jackson retreats a step, his eyebrows going up, and she knows that she could lose his interest if she’s not quick with this. She doesn’t check the caller ID. “Lydia Martin,” she says sharply.

“Weird question,” Stiles- _fucking_ -Stilinski says down the line, “but let’s say a dude wanted to surprise his soulmate on New Year’s Eve and was already half an hour outside of LA, how could that dude get into his soulmate’s apartment building?”

Lydia’s blood runs cold. “You _what_?” she hisses.

Jackson looks at her with narrowed eyes like he’s trying to figure out if her sudden temper is going to be a threat to him. 

“Oh come _on_ ,” Stiles sighs, “have a heart, Lydia.”

“Don’t start with me. You have _no idea_ how much _heart_ I’ve had for your situation, Stiles,” she bites out. Even if Lydia got a cab _right now_ , there’s no way she could get to Derek’s place in time to intercept Stiles; there’s no way she can stop this. Sure, she could not tell Stiles how to get in, but she’d have to run the risk of Stiles making a scene-- or worse, calling Derek down to let him in himself.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she says, turning her back to Jackson. “You remember where the building is?”

“Yeah, I have it in my GPS history.”

“Okay, go there. I’ll call someone and have them collect you and take you up. Are you still driving that hideous Jeep?”

“He’s a handsome devil and I won’t hear any word against him,” Stiles snaps, suddenly serious.

“Okay. Park a few blocks down. I’m sure Boyd will be able to find that eyesore without any problem.”

“Boyd?” Stiles asks.

“Goodnight, Stiles,” Lydia hisses. “Try not to drag half a dozen people into a media circus just because you felt like being spontaneous tonight.” 

And she hangs up, a sense of dread creeping into her stomach. When she turns around, Jackson is gone, and Braeden and Kira are coming her way, grinning and holding their arms out. She wants nothing more than to go to them, drink herself half-blind, and forget about that phone call entirely--

But she has to call Boyd first.

***

New Years is one of those holidays that Derek is never sure what to do with; he’s not someone who enjoys himself at parties that have more than ten or so people, but there’s never anything good on TV. Usually he’d go out and get something to eat, maybe scout out a good place to watch the fireworks with Cora or Boyd or Erica-- but this year he’s still being followed by the paparazzi two out of every five times he steps outside, and he didn’t want to lock them up with him.

For a while, he thinks about Skyping Stiles-- but Stiles works tonight and won’t be home until the morning, which leaves Derek right here, in his loft, padding around the room and going over another script Marin passed his way. This one’s a biopic, and Derek has an opportunity to read for a pretty prominent character in it if he wants to give it a try.

But he would have a screen-wife, and there are a few scenes of easy affection shared between them, and the thought makes Derek’s skin crawl still. He may not have gotten the Shakes yet, but if anything would give them to him, it’d be kissing someone-- even for a role-- so early into his and Stiles’s bond.

A knock sounds, and Derek drops the script on the cushion next to him and gets up to answer the door with a smile-- the only person he knows who _knocks_ on his door is Boyd.

But when he throws the door open, rolling it with all his upper body strength, Boyd’s standing there with a sour look on his face. Derek’s smile fades.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Picked something up for you,” he says, and his face screws up a little. He turns his body and someone steps out, into Derek’s line of sight--

“ _Stiles_?” he chokes out.

Stiles gives him a little nervous wave. “Yo,” he says. He’s smirking, and he’s only got eyes for Derek, even as Boyd looks between the two of them and eventually scoffs, rolls his eyes, and puts his hands up.

“Alright, I’m out. You guys should get inside before some shithead with a camera sticks his head out in the hallway,” he says, stepping back. “Happy New Year, Derek.”

Boyd’s words are distant to Derek, and for a beat he and Stiles stay completely still, taking each other in. Then Derek steps aside-- suddenly aware that he’s wearing sweats and a worn-out, lavender v-neck that’s stretched out and exposes most of his collar bone-- and says, “Come in.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, and he scrubs a hand over his head as he ducks past. Derek closes the door behind him and-- stares.

Stiles doesn’t spare the apartment much of a glance. He turns back to Derek and says, “Shit, I made it weird didn’t I? Sorry, that--”

“It’s not weird,” Derek says quickly. The look Stiles gives him makes him wince. “It’s weird, but… not… bad?”

Stiles snorts. “High praise,” he hums. He looks more relaxed, though, as he slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looks around. His eyebrows lift as he takes in the room. “Nice digs,” he says vaguely. “I actually think I’ve been upstairs before.”

Derek takes a deep breath; he’s still not sure where he stands about the whole dream-sharing thing. “Right, I-- right.” 

Stiles grins at him, the curve of his mouth wicked. “That was one of my favorites, between you and me,” he says, winking. Then he’s stepping down from the raised floor of the foyer, wandering into the living room proper, approaching the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. “Penthouse,” he remarks quietly-- like he’s telling himself more than Derek-- “figures.”

“What are you doing here?” Derek finally asks, the suspense making him anxious. He follows Stiles down into the middle of the living room until they’re about an arm’s length apart.

Stiles turns back to him and looks contrite. “Uh, funny story,” he says, and Derek doesn’t wince, but it’s a close thing. Nothing good starts with ‘uh, funny story.’ But Stiles stays quiet for a long time, looking anywhere but at Derek. 

“I quit my job,” he says after a while, and Derek frowns. 

“Why--”

“I hated it,” Stiles says with a shrug, cutting him off. “I realized that I was going to hate it just as much if I moved positions, too, and I couldn’t stay on the phones, so I quit. And then I realized that I had New Year’s Eve to myself now, so I thought I’d surprise you.” He shrugs again.

“Just for New Year’s?” Derek asks, stepping closer into Stiles’s space. The more time he sees Stiles standing here, in Derek’s space, the more he likes it-- the more he wants to convince him to _stay_.

Stiles looks at him, his eyes searching Derek’s face for a second before they land somewhere around his mouth, then flick back up to meet Derek’s gaze. He licks his own lips and says, “That depends.”

Derek’s fingers are _aching_ to touch him, so he does; he wraps a careful hand around one of Stiles’s elbows, but he doesn’t squeeze, just holds. Stiles’s mouth curves into a sweet little smirk Derek is tempted to kiss away, but instead he asks, “On what?”

“You,” Stiles practically whispers. “I’m jobless, now, so I was thinking I’d call Allison and--”

Derek cut him off with a sharp, demanding kiss-- their teeth knock at first, and Stiles hisses and pulls back with a bitchy expression only to fist his hands in Derek’s already-stretched shirt and _yank_ him back in, his kiss just as aggressive, though his lips are so, so soft. Derek wraps his arms around him and tastes the chill off Stiles’s mouth where it still lingers, then the warmth of his tongue, which he sucks on a little, just to make Stiles squirm.

Stiles draws away first and checks his watch with a little laugh. Derek goes back in for another kiss, but Stiles puts a finger to his mouth playfully and says, “Fifteen seconds,” with a smirk.

It takes Derek a few seconds to understand what Stiles is saying, but then Stiles is saying, “Ten, nine, eight--” each number getting louder, more excited, “-- seven, six, five, four,” and Derek gathers him in his arms again, smiles against his temple; he smells like a long car ride and must be exhausted, though he’s outright laughing now, and Derek can see the curve of his cheek where he’s grinning, “three! Two!--”

He kisses Stiles right into the New Year, his hands cupping Stiles’s face, Stiles’s hands clutching at Derek’s wrists, both of them grinning against each other’s mouths with their eyes shut and the bond between them singing.

*

  

  

  

### A NEW YEAR

Stiles rolls over to kiss Derek first thing the next morning when they both stir awake, pressed together in the middle of Derek’s too-big bed, but Derek puts a hand over his mouth and stretches away. Stiles licks his palm, and Derek scowls at him, unimpressed.

“Oh, come on,” Stiles huffs, pulling away. “I didn’t even throw up last night!”

“You nearly passed out,” Derek huffs, sitting up. The sheet slips down to his hips, but he’s fully clothed still, which Stiles must be unhappy about judging by the frown on his face. “That’s actually _more_ upsetting.” 

“I don’t get it,” Stiles groans, flopping onto his back. “We can dream bone into the next millennium, no problem, but the second I actually touch your boner in real life, I’m in the Danger Zone.”

He’s squinting at Derek, his expression accusatory, and Derek drops a pillow on his face. “My _boner_ didn’t give you the Shakes.” 

“Show me the science,” Stiles protests. He doesn’t move to take the pillow off his face, though. It’s the pillow he brought with him in his backpack-- the only thing he brought into the apartment last night. 

Derek rolls his eyes. “Google it,” he jokes, and he drags the pillow off Stiles himself and gives in, swooping down to drop a chaste kiss on Stiles’s mouth. Stiles catches him, though, with a hand curled around the back of his neck, and drags the kiss into something deeper. 

He pulls back though with an unhappy noise. “Morning breath,” he says, shoving Derek’s face away, and Derek snorts and makes a show of going in for another kiss. Stiles squawks and shoves him harder, laughing. His voice is still sleep-gruff, and Derek’s overwhelmed, for a minute, by the sight of him in Derek’s bed, happy and playful.

He leans over Stiles and says, “We should go get breakfast.”

Stiles squints at him. “Not that I’m not ready and willing to eat _literally_ everything right now,” he says, “but is that a smart idea?”

Probably not, Derek knows, but he doesn’t want to admit to that. “I have hats and sunglasses, and I go to the same diner every Friday morning for breakfast when I’m not working or out of town. It’s tradition.”

“Oh, well, if it’s _tradition_ ,” Stiles says, smirking, and he bends his arms up behind his head, pillowing his head in his hands. “Can’t break tradition.”

Derek leans in. “Exactly,” he agrees, smiling wryly, and he steals another kiss before Stiles can shove him off. Then he rolls off the bed and heads for the bathroom, leaving Stiles sprawled in the middle of his bed, exactly where Derek wants to keep him.

***

The article is a scant 350 words, but that’s all they need with the photo laid out beside it. All that’s left is to choose the headline-- to pick the right combination of words that will kick up another firestorm and start another wave of chaos in the media, another harvest at Peter’s hands.

The photo credit goes to Daehler, but the identification-- that’s all Peter’s doing. He’s never forgotten a face, not once, and even under the bulky sunglasses and a baseball cap and a hoodie, he recognizes the boy walking alongside Derek, coming out of Derek’s building, as that mouthy kid who had come into his office nearly half a year ago, ostensibly looking to make some cash.

That was clearly a cover, Peter knows now-- has known it since Daehler had brought him the photo a day and a half ago. He’d come in bouncing on his toes even though being within 500 yards of Derek definitely violates the restraining order Lydia Martin had seen through to fruition after Matt took the original photo of Derek’s soulmark in June.

The photo looks innocent enough: just two men walking side by side, bundled up against the winter chill. But even something small can be damning when put into the right context. Derek Hale in the presence of a strange new man, just months after his soulmark went viral? Especially when Peter knows-- and can and _will_ tell the world-- that this unknown kid came into _his_ office on a mission to get close to Derek? It’s tabloid fodder at its finest. The gold standard of Hollywood drivel. 

Credit where credit is due, Peter is rarely surprised by the big-eyed kids who wander through his doors, hungry for notoriety. And seeing this photo on his desk was _certainly_ a surprise. Peter had written the boy and his friends off as cowards after the end of their verbal agreement when only blurry, worthless across-the-street shots had been sent to him. He’d never even suspected…

So, it’s a matter of pride, he thinks, laying the pieces of the article out in front of him, studying each one, looking into the soul of each of them to find the _perfect_ hook to blow this story out of the water. Some nobody kid from fuck-all-ville doesn’t get to outsmart Peter Hale and have the last word-- not on his watch.

If he spins it right, this could be a real scandal; if he spins it right, no one in the world would trust Stiles’s intentions to Derek. Laura’s story had been too sensational, the following trial had set too many precedents. The world would know, and they would question Derek’s judgment and--

It’s a shame, Peter thinks, that Talia had never let Peter into their lives even once. He’d have recognized Brunski for what he was immediately: the sort of wild-eyed, hungry man that comes chomping at the bit for attention. The sort of depraved bastard that Peter sees every day. 

But Talia had shut him out thirty years ago, and the vindictive part of him thinks she maybe deserved what happened for that alone. Her husband and daughter six feet under, her only son caught in the jaws of the media week after week-- that’s what Talia chose for herself. If circumstances were different…

No use thinking about that, Peter knows. He can’t change the past, but he can control the future.

A light on his phone comes on, and there’s a sharp beep that accompanies it. He smashes it down and says, “What?”

“I have a name,” Jennifer says. “Stilinski. Stiles Stilinski.”

He releases the button and looks down at the article in front of him, his mouth curling into a sharp, vicious smirk.

“Stiles,” he says, feeling the name on his tongue. It’s immensely satisfying. “I can work with that.”


End file.
